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Date  Due 


Apr  28*38 


M«^^_ -! 

T(p7    lorrey,   Bradford, 


AUTHOR 


Ipring  notes   from  Tennessee 


^ooks  ip  Jlr.  STorrep, 


BIRDS  IN  THE  BUSH.  i6mo,  $1.25. 
A  RAMBLER'S  LEASE.  i6mo,  $1.25. 
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^1.25. 
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SPRING      NOTES      FROM      TENNESSEE. 
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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
Boston  and  New  York. 


SPRING    NOTES    FROM 
TENNESSEE 


BY 


BRADFORD  TORREY 


We  travelled  in  the  print  of  olden  wars ; 
Yet  all  the  land  was  green. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

(m)e  mitet|9ibE  j&rcss,  CambriKge 
1896 


Copyright,  1896, 
By  BRADFORD  TORRET. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The.  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

An  Idler  on  Missionary  Ridge 1 

Lookout  Mountain 28 

Chickamauga 57 

Orchard  Knob  and  the  National  Cemetery  89 

An  Afternoon  by  the  River »  102 

A  Morning  in  the  North  Woods  .....  113 

A  Week  on  Walden's  Ridge 124 

Some  Tennessee  Bird  Notes 183 

A  List  of  Birds 213 

Index 221 


Q 


i  i    -  i 


\Ln 


^1)^1. 


SPKING  NOTES  FKOM  TENNESSEE. 


AN  IDLER   ON   MISSIONARY   RIDGE. 

I  BEACHED  Chattanooga  on  the  evening 
of  April  26th,  in  the  midst  of  a  rattling 
thnnder-shower,  —  which,  to  look  hack  upon 
it,  seems  to  have  been  prophetic,  —  and  the 
next  morning,  after  an  early  breakfast, 
took  an  electric  car  for  Missionary  Ridge. 
Among  my  fellow  -  passengers  were  four 
Louisiana  veterans  fresh  from  their  annual 
reunion  at  Birmingham,  where,  doubtless, 
their  hearts  had  been  kindled  by  much  fer- 
vent oratory,  as  well  as  by  much  private 
talk  of  those  bygone  days  when  they  did 
everything  but  die  for  the  cause  they  loved. 
As  the  car  mounted  the  Ridge,  one  of  them 
called  his  companions'  attention  to  a  place 
down  the  valley  where  "  the  Rebels  and  the 
Yankees  "  (his  own  words)  used  to  meet  to 
play  cards.  "  A  regular  gambling-hole," 
he  called  it.     Their  boys  brought  back  lots 


fnomrr  uBRARr 


i^.  C.  Slate  CoM^ 


2     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  RIDGE. 

of  coffee.  In  another  direction  was  a  spot 
where  the  Rebels  once  "  had  a  regular  pic- 
nic," killing  some  extraordinary  number  of 
Yankees  in  some  incredibly  brief  time.  I 
interrupted  the  conversation,  and  at  the 
same  time  made  myself  known  as  a  stran- 
ger and  a  Northerner,  by  inquiring  after 
the  whereabouts  of  Orchard  Knob,  General 
Grant's  headquarters  ;  and  the  same  man, 
who  seemed  to  be  the  s]3okesman  of  the 
party,  after  pointing  out  the  place,  a  savin- 
sprinkled  knoll  between  us  and  the  city, 
kindly  invited  me  to  go  with  him  and  his 
comrades  up  to  the  tower,  —  on  the  site  of 
General  Bragg's  headquarters,  —  where  he 
would  show  me  the  whole  battlefield  and 
tell  me  about  the  fight. 

We  left  the  car  together  for  that  purpose, 
and  walked  up  the  slope  to  the  foot  of  the 
observatory,  —  an  open  structure  of  iron, 
erected  by  the  national  government;  but 
just  then  my  ear  caught  somewhere  beyond 
us  the  song  of  a  Bachman's  finch,  —  a  song 
I  had  heard  a  year  before  in  the  pine  woods 
of  Florida,  and,  in  my  ignorance,  was  un- 
prepared for  here.  I  must  see  the  bird  and 
make  sure  of  its  identity.     It  led  me  a  little 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  BIDGE.      3 

chase,  and  when  I  had  seen  it  I  must  look 
also  at  a  summer  tanager,  a  chat,  and  so  on, 
one  thing  leading  to  another ;  and  by  the 
time  I  returned  to  the  observatory  the  vet- 
erans had  come  down  and  were  under  some 
apple-trees,  from  one  of  which  the  spokes- 
man was  cutting  a  big  walking-stick.  He 
had  stood  under  those  trees  —  which  were 
now  in  bloom  —  thirty  years  before,  he  said, 
with  General  Bragg  himself. 

I  was  sorry  to  have  missed  his  story  of 
the  battle,  and  ashamed  to  have  seemed  un- 
grateful and  rude,  but  I  forget  what  apology 
I  offered.  At  this  distance  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  I  could  have  got  out  of  the  affair  with 
much  dignity.  I  might  have  heard  all  about 
the  battle  from  a  man  who  was  there,  and 
instead  I  went  off  to  listen  to  a  sparrow 
singing  in  a  bush.  I  thought,  to  be  sure, 
that  the  men  would  be  longer  upon  the  ob- 
servatory, and  that  I  should  still  be  in  sea- 
son. Probably  that  was  my  excuse,  if  I 
made  one  ;  and  in  all  likelihood  the  veteran 
was  too  completely  taken  up  with  his  own 
concerns  to  think  twice  about  the  vagaries 
of  a  stray  Yankee,  who  seemed  to  be  an  odd 
stick,  to  say  nothing  worse  of  him.     Well, 


4     AN  LDLEB   ON  MISSIONARY  BIDGE. 

the  loss,  sucli  as  it  was,  was  mine,  not  his ; 
and  I  have  lost  too  much  time  in  the  way 
of  business  to  fret  over  a  little  lost  (or 
saved)  in  the  way  of  pleasure.  As  for  any 
apparent  lack  of  patriotic  feeling,  I  suppose 
that  the  noblest  patriot  in  the  world,  if  he 
chanced  to  be  also  an  ornithologist,  would 
notice  a  bird  even  amid  the  smoke  of  bat- 
tle ;  and  why  should  not  I  do  as  much  on  a 
field  from  which  the  battle  smoke  had  van- 
ished thirty  years  before  ? 

So  I  reason  now ;  at  the  time  I  had  no 
leisure  for  such  sophistries.  Every  moment 
brought  some  fresh  distraction.  The  long 
hill  —  woodland,  brambly  pasture,  and 
shrubby  dooryard  —  was  a  nest  of  singing 
birds ;  and  when  at  last  I  climbed  the 
tower,  I  came  down  again  almost  as  sud- 
denly as  my  Louisiana  friends  had  done. 
The  landscape,  —  the  city  and  its  suburbs, 
the  river,  the  mountains,  —  all  this  would 
be  here  to-morrow;  just  now  there  were 
other  things  to  look  at.  Here  in  the  grass, 
almost  under  my  nose,  were  a  pair  of  Be- 
wick wrens,  hopping  and  walking  by  turns, 
as  song  sparrows  may  sometimes  be  found 
doing;    conscious  through   and   through  of 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  BIDGE.     5 

my  presence,  yet  affecting  to  ignore  it ;  car- 
rying themselves  with  an  indescribable  and 
pretty  demureness,  as  if  a  nest  were  some- 
thing never  dreamed  of  by  birds  of  their 
kind ;  the  female,  nevertheless,  having  at 
that  moment  her  beak  bristling  with  straws, 
while  the  male,  a  proud  young  husband, 
hovered  officiously  about  her  with  a  con- 
tinual sweetly  possessive  manner  and  an 
occasional  burst  of  song.  Till  yesterday 
Bewick's  wren  had  been  nothing  but  a  name 
to  me.  Then,  somewhere  after  crossing  the 
state  line,  the  train  stopped  at  a  station,  and 
suddenly  through  the  open  window  came  a 
song.  "  That 's  a  Bewick  wren,"  I  said  to 
myself,  as  I  stepped  across  the  aisle  to  look 
out ;  and  there  he  stood,  on  the  fence  beside 
the  track,  his  long  tail  striking  the  eye  on 
the  instant.  He  sang  again,  and  once  again, 
before  the  train  started.  Tennessee  was 
beginning  well  with  a  visiting  bird-gazer. 

There  must  be  some  wrennish  quality 
about  the  Bewick's  song,  it  would  seem : 
else  how  did  I  recognize  it  so  promptly? 
And  yet,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  give  an 
account  of  my  own  impressions,  it  had  in 
my  ears  no  resemblance  to  any  wren  song  I 


6     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 

had  ever  heard.  I  think  it  never  suggested 
to  me  any  music  except  the  song  sparrow's. 
The  truth  is,  I  suppose,  that  we  feel  resem- 
blances and  relationships  of  which  the  mind 
takes  no  cognizance. 

I  wandered  at  a  venture  down  the  further 
slope,  turning  this  way  and  that  as  a  song 
invited  me.  Here  were  Southerners  and 
Northerners  fraternally  commingled:  siun- 
mer  tanagers,  Carolina  wrens,  blue  -  gray 
gnatcatchers,  cardinal  grosbeaks,  chats, 
Bachman  finches,  field  sparrows,  chippers, 
white-throated  sparrows,  chewinks,  indigo 
buntings,  black-poll  warblers,  myrtle-birds, 
prairie  warblers,  a  Maryland  yellow-throat, 
a  bay-breasted  warbler,  a  black-and-white 
creeper,  a  redstart,  brown  thrushes,  cat- 
birds, a  single  mocking  -  bird,  wood 
thrushes,  red-eyed  vireos,  white-eyed  vireos, 
wood  pewees,  a  quail,  and,  in  the  air,  pur- 
ple martins  and  turkey  buzzards.  On  the 
Kidge,  as  well  as  near  the  foot  on  our  way 
up,  a  mocking-bird  and  a  wood  thrush  sang 
within  hearing  of  each  other.  Comparison  as 
between  birds  so  dissimilar  is  useless  and  out 
of  place ;  but  how  shall  a  man  avoid  it  ?  The 
mocking-bird  is  a  great  vocalist,  —  yes,  and 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.      1 

a  great  singer ;  but  to  my  Northern  ears  the 
wood  thrush  carried  the  day  with  his  voice. 

Having  climbed  the  Eidge  again,  — 
though  climbing  might  be  thought  rather 
too  laborious  a  word  for  so  gradual  a  slope, 
—  and  started  down  on  the  side  toward  the 
city,  I  came  to  a  patch  of  blackberry  vines, 
in  the  midst  of  which  sat  a  thrasher  on  her 
nest,  all  a  mother's  anxiety  in  her  staring 
yellow  eyes.  Close  by  her  stood  an  olive- 
backed  thrush.  There,  too,  was  my  first 
hooded  warbler,  a  female.  She  escaped  me 
the  next  instant,  though  I  made  an  eager 
chase,  not  knowing  yet  how  common  birds 
of  her  sort  were  to  prove  in  that  Chatta- 
nooga country. 

In  my  delight  at  finding  Missionary  Eidge 
so  happy  a  hunting-ground  for  an  opera-glass 
naturalist,  I  went  thither  again  the  very 
next  morning.  This  time  some  Virginia 
veterans  were  in  the  car  (they  all  wore 
badges),  and  when  we  had  left  it,  and  were 
about  separating,  —  after  a  bit  of  talk  about 
the  battle,  of  course,  —  one  of  them,  with 
almost  painful  scrupulosity,  insisted  upon  as- 
suring me  that  if  the  thing  were  all  to  be 
done  over  again,  he  should  do  just  as  before. 


8     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 

One  of  Ms  comrades,  seeing  me  a  Northerner, 
interrupted  him  more  than  once  in  a  vain 
attempt  to  smooth  matters  over.  They  had 
buried  the  hatchet,  he  said ;  let  bygones  be 
bygones.  But  the  first  man  was  not  to  be 
cajoled  with  a  phrase.  He  spoke  without 
passion,  with  no  raising  of  the  voice,  quite 
simply  and  amicably :  he  too  accepted  the 
result ;  the  thing  never  would  be  done  over 
again ;  only  let  his  position  be  understood, 
—  he  had  nothing  to  take  back.  It  was  im- 
possible not  to  respect  such  conscientious- 
ness. For  my  own  part,  at  any  rate,  I  felt 
no  prompting  to  argue  against  it,  being  suf- 
ficiently "  opinionated  "  to  appreciate  a  diffi- 
culty which  some  obstinate  people  experience 
in  altering;  their  convictions  as  circumstances 
change,  or  accepting  the  failure  of  a  cause  as 
proof  of  its  injustice.  If  a  man  is  not  too 
obstinate,  to  be  sure,  time  and  the  course  of 
events  may  bring  him  new  light ;  but  that 
is  another  matter.  Once,  when  the  men 
were  talking  among  themselves,  I  overheard 
one  say,  as  he  pointed  down  the  hill,  "  The 
Rebels  were  there,  and  the  Union  men  yon- 
der." That  careless  recurrence  of  the  word 
"  Rebel "  came  to  me  as  a  surprise. 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.      9 

The  principal  excitement  of  the  morning 
was  a  glimpse  of  a  Kentucky  warbler,  a  bird 
most  peculiarly  desired.  I  had  finished  my 
jaunt,  and  was  standing  beside  the  bramble 
patch  not  far  from  the  railway,  where  I  had 
seen  the  hooded  warbler  the  day  before,  when 
the  splendid  creature  flashed  into  sight,  saw 
me,  uttered  a  volley  of  quick,  clear  notes, 
and  vanished  up  the  hillside.  I  ran  after 
him,  but  might  as  well  have  remained  where 
I  was.  "  He  is  a  beauty !  "  I  find  written 
in  my  notebook.  And  so  he  is,  clothed 
in  lustrous  olive  and  the  most  gorgeous  of 
yellows  with  trimmings  of  black,  all  in  the 
best  of  taste,  with  nothing  patchy,  nothing 
fantastic  or  even  fanciful.  I  was  again  im- 
pressed with  the  abundance  of  chats,  indigo- 
birds,  and  white-eyed  vireos.  Bachman  spar- 
rows were  numerous,  also,  in  appropriate 
localities,  —  dry  and  bushy,  —  and  I  noted  a 
bluebird,  a  yellow-throated  vireo,  and,  shout- 
ing from  a  dead  treetop,  a  great  crested  fly- 
catcher. 

My  most  vivid  recollection  of  this  second 
visit,  however,  is  of  the  power  of  the  sun,  an 
old  enemy  of  mine,  by  whom,  in  my  igno- 
rance  of   spring   weather   in   Tennessee,  I 


10     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 

allowed  myself  to  be  taken  at  a  cruel  noon- 
day disadvantage.  Even  now,  in  the  deep 
frigidity  of  a  Massachusetts  winter,  I  cannot 
think  of  Missionary  Ridge  without  seeing 
again  those  long  stretches  of  burning  sun- 
shine, wherein  the  least  spot  of  shade  was 
like  a  palm  in  the  desert.  In  every  such 
shelter  I  used  to  stand  awhile,  bareheaded ; 
then,  marking  the  next  similar  haven,  so 
many  rods  ahead,  I  would  hoist  my  umbrella 
and  push  forward,  cringing  at  every  step  as 
if  I  were  crossing  a  field  under  fire.  Possi- 
bly I  exaggerate,  but,  if  I  do,  it  is  very  little  ; 
and  though  it  be  an  abuse  of  an  exquisite 
poem,  I  say  over  to  myself  again  and  again 
a  couplet  of  Miss  Guiney's  :  — 

"  Weather  on  a  sunny  ridge, 

Showery  weather,  far  from  here." 

In  truth,  early  as  the  season  was,  the  exces- 
sive heat,  combined  with  a  trying  dog-day 
humidity,  sadly  circumscribed  all  my  Ten- 
nessee rambles.  As  for  my  umbrella,  my 
obligations  to  it  were  such  that  nothing  but 
a  dread  of  plagiarism  has  restrained  me  from 
entitling  this  sketch  "  An  Umbrella  on  Mis- 
sionary Ridge."  Nature  never  intended  me 
for  a  tropical  explorer.     Often  I  did  nothing 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.     11 

more  than  seek  a  shady  retreat  and  stay 
there,  letting  the  birds  come  to  me,  if  they 
would. 

Improved  after  this  indolent  fashion,  one 
of  the  hottest  of  my  forenoons  became  also 
one  of  the  most  enjoyable.  I  left  the  car 
midway  up  the  Ridge,  —  at  the  angle  of  the 
Y,  —  and,  passing  my  thrasher's  blackberry 
tangle  and  descending  a  wooded  slope,  found 
myself  unexpectedly  in  a  pleasant  place,  half 
wood,  half  grassy  field,  through  which  ran  a 
tiny  streamlet,  the  first  one  I  had  seen  in 
this  dry  and  thirsty  land.  Near  the  stream- 
let, on  the  edge  of  the  wood,  quite  by  itself, 
stood  a  cabin  of  most  forlorn  appearance, 
with  a  garden  patch  under  the  window,  — 
if  there  was  a  window,  as  to  which  I  do  not 
remember,  and  the  chances  seem  against  it, 
—  the  whole  closely  and  meanly  surrounded 
by  a  fence.  In  the  door  stood  an  aged  white 
woman,  looking  every  whit  as  old  and  for- 
lorn as  the  cabin,  with  a  tall  mastiff  on  one 
side  of  her  and  a  black  cat  on  the  other. 

''  Your  dog  and  cat  are  good  friends,"  I 
remarked,  feeling  it  polite  to  speak  even  to 
a  stranger  in  so  lonesome  a  spot. 

"Yes,"   she   answered   gruffly,   "they're 


12     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 

good  friends,  only  once  in  a  while  he  wants 
to  kill  her." 

She  said  nothing  more,  and  her  manner 
did  not  encourage  further  attempts  at  neigh- 
borly intercourse ;  but  as  I  passed  the  cabin 
now  and  then  during  the  forenoon,  the  birds 
leading  me  about,  I  heard  her  muttering 
often  and  at  considerable  length  to  her  hens 
and  ducks.  Evidently  she  enjoyed  conver- 
sation as  well  as  most  people,  only  she  liked 
to  pick  her  own  company.  She  was  "  Aunt 
Tilly,"  I  learned  afterwards,  and  had  lived 
there  by  herself  for  many  years ;  one  of  the 
characters  of  the  city,  a  fortune-teller,  whose 
professional  services  were  in  frequent  re- 
quest. 

In  this  favored  nook,  especially  along  the 
watercourse,  were  many  birds,  some  of  them 
at  home  for  the  summer,  but  the  greater 
part,  no  doubt,  lying  over  for  a  day  or  two 
on  their  long  northward  journey.  Not  one 
of  them  but  was  interesting  to  me  here 
in  a  new  country,  however  familiar  it  might 
have  become  in  New  England.  Here  were 
at  least  eleven  kinds  of  warblers  :  black-polls 
of  both  sexes,  black-throated  blues,  chestnut- 
sides,  myrtle-birds,  golden  warblers,  black- 


AN  IBLEB  ON  MISSIONARY  BIBGE.     13 

and  -  white  creepers,  redstarts  (have  we 
anything  handsomer  ?),  Maryland  yellow- 
throats,  blue  golden-wings,  chats,  and  Kenv 
tuckies.  Here  were  blue-gray  gnatcatchers, 
bluebirds,  wood  thrushes,  veeries,  an  olive- 
backed  thrush,  catbirds,  thrashers,  Carolina 
wrens,  tufted  titmice,  a  Carolina  chickadee, 
summer  tanagers  uncounted,  orchard  orioles, 
field  sparrows,  chippers,  a  Bachman  sparrow 
(unseen),  a  cardinal,  a  chewink,  flocks  of 
indigo-birds  and  goldfinches,  red-eyed  vireos, 
white-eyed  vireos,  a  yellow-throated  vireo, 
kingbirds,  and  a  crested  flycatcher. 

In  an  oak  at  the  corner  of  Aunt  Tilly's 
cabin  a  pair  of  gnatcatchers  had  built  a  nest ; 
an  exquisite  piece  of  work,  large  and  curi- 
ously cylindrical,  —  not  tapering  at  the  base, 

—  set  off  with  a  profusion  of  gray  lichens, 
and  saddled  upon  one  limb  directly  under 
another,  as  if  for  shelter.  If  the  gnatcatcher 
is  not  a  great  singer  (his  voice  is  slender, 
like  himself),  he  is  near  the  head  of  his  pro- 
fession as  an  architect  and  a  builder.  Twice, 
in  the  most  senseless  manner,  one  of  the 
birds  —  the  female,  I  had  no  doubt,  in  spite 
of  the  adjective  just  applied  to  her  conduct 

—  stood  beside  the  nest  and  scolded  at  me  ; 


14     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  BIDGE. 

then,  having  freed  her  mind  and  attracted 
my  attention,  she  got  inside  and  began  peck- 
ing here  and  there  at  the  rim,  apparently 
giving  it  the  final  touches.  The  tufted  tits 
whistled  unseen  with  all  their  characteristic 
monotony.  The  veeries  and  the  olive-back 
kept  silence,  but  the  wood  thrushes,  as  was 
their  daily  habit,  made  the  woods  ring.  One 
of  them  was  building  a  nest. 

Most  admired  of  all  were  the  Kentucky 
warblers,  of  which  there  were  at  least  five. 
It  was  my  first  real  sight  of  them,  and,  for- 
tunately, they  were  not  in  the  least  bashful. 
They  spent  the  time  mostly  on  the  ground, 
in  open,  grassy  places,  especially  about  the 
roots  of  trees  and  thorn-bushes,  —  the  latter 
now  snowy  with  bloom,  —  once  in  a  while 
hopping  a  few  inches  up  the  bole,  as  if  to 
pick  off  insects.  In  movement  and  attitude 
they  made  me  think  often  of  the  Connecti- 
cut warbler,  although  when  startled  they 
took  a  higher  perch.  Once  I  saw  one  of 
them  under  a  pretty  tuft  of  the  showy  blue 
baptisia  (5.  australis)^  —  a  new  bird  in 
the  shadow  of  a  new  flower !  Who  says 
that  life  is  an  old  story  ?  From  the  general 
manner  of  the  birds,  —  more  easily  felt  than 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.     15 

defined,  —  as  well  as  from  their  presence  in 
a  group  and  their  silence,  I  inferred,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  that  they  had  but  recently  ar- 
rived. For  aught  I  yet  knew,  they  might 
be  nothing  but  wayfarers,  —  a  happy  uncer- 
tainty which  made  them  only  the  more  in- 
teresting. Of  their  beauty  I  have  already 
spoken.  It  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of 
it  too  highly. 

As  I  took  the  car  at  noon,  I  caught  sight 
of  a  wonderfully  bright  blood-red  flower  on 
the  bank  above  the  track,  and,  as  I  was  the 
only  passenger,  the  conductor  kindly  waited 
for  me  to  run  up  and  pluck  it.  It  turned 
out  to  be  a  catchfly,  and,  like  the  Kentucky 
warbler,  it  became  common  a  little  later. 
"  Indian  pink,"  one  of  my  Walden's  Eidge 
friends  said  it  was  called ;  a  pretty  name, 
but  to  me  "  battlefield  pink  "  or  "  carnage 
pink  "  would  have  seemed  more  appropriate. 

I  had  found  an  aviary,  I  thought,  this 
open  grove  of  Aunt  Tilly's,  with  its  treasure 
of  a  brook,  and  at  the  earliest  opportunity  I 
went  that  way  again.  Indeed,  I  went  more 
than  once.  But  the  birds  were  no  longer 
there.  What  I  had  seen  was  mainly  a  flock 
of  "  transients,"  a  migratory  "  wave."     On 


16     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. 

the  farther  side  of  the  Ridge,  however,  I  by 
and  by  discovered  a  spot  more  permanently 
attractive,  —  a  little  valley  in  the  hillside. 
Here  was  a  spring,  and  from  it,  nearly  dry 
as  it  was,  there  still  oozed  a  slender  rill, 
which  trickled  halfway  down  the  slope 
before  losing  itself  in  the  sand,  and  here 
and  there  dribbled  into  a  basin  commodious 
enough  for  a  small  bird's  bath.  Several 
times  I  idled  away  an  hour  or  two  in  this 
retreat,  under  the  shadow  of  red  maples, 
sweet-gums,  sycamores,  and  tupelos,  making 
an  occasional  sortie  into  the  sun  as  an  ad- 
venturous mood  came  over  me  or  a  distant 
bird-call  proved  an  irresistible  attraction. 

They  were  pleasant  hours,  but  I  recall 
them  with  a  sense  of  waste  and  discomfort. 
In  familiar  surroundings,  such  waitings 
upon  Nature's  mood  are  profitable,  whole- 
some for  body  and  soul ;  but  in  vacation 
time,  and  away  from  home,  with  new  paths 
beckoning  a  man  this  way  and  that,  and  a 
new  bird,  for  aught  he  can  tell,  singing  be- 
yond the  next  hill, —  at  such  a  time,  I  think, 
sitting  still  becomes  a  burden,  and  the  cheer- 
ful practice  of  "a  wise  passiveness  "  a  virtue 
beyond  the  comfortable  reach  of  ordinary 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.     17 

flesh  and  blood.  Along  the  upper  edge  of 
the  glen  a  road  ran  downward  into  the  val- 
ley east  of  the  Ridge,  and  now  and  then  a 
carriage  or  a  horseman  passed.  It  would 
have  been  good  to  follow  them.  All  that 
valley  country,  as  I  surveyed  it  from  the 
railway  and  the  tower,  had  an  air  of  invit- 
ingness  :  beautiful  woods,  with  footpaths 
and  unfrequented  roads.  In  them  I  must 
have  found  birds,  flowers,  and  many  a  de- 
lightful nook.  If  the  Fates  could  have  sent 
me  one  cool  day  ! 

Yet  for  all  my  complaining,  I  have  lived 
few  more  enjoyable  Sunday  forenoons  than 
one  that  I  passed  most  inactively  in  this 
same  hiUside  hollow.  As  I  descended  the 
bank  to  the  spring,  two  or  three  goldfinches 
were  singing  (goldfinch  voices  go  uncom- 
monly well  in  chorus,  and  the  birds  seem  to 
know  it)  ;  a  female  tanager  sat  before  me 
calling  clippity^  clipjoity ;  a  field  sparrow, 
a  mocking  wren,  and  a  catbird  sang  in  as 
many  different  directions ;  and  a  pair  of 
thrashers  —  whose  nest  could  not  be  far 
away  —  flitted  nervously  about,  uttering 
characteristic  moaning  whistles.  If  they 
felt  half  as  badly  as  their  behavior   indi- 


18     AN  IDLEB   ON  MISSION ABY  RIDGE. 

cated,  their  case  was  tragical  indeed;  but 
at  the  moment,  instead  of  pitying  them, 
I  fell  to  wondering  just  when  it  is  that 
the  thrasher  smachs  (all  friends  of  his  are 
familiar  with  his  resounding  imitation  of  a 
kiss),  and  when  it  is  that  he  whistles.  I 
have  never  made  out,  although  I  believe  I 
know  pretty  well  the  states  of  mind  thus 
expressed.  The  thrasher  is  to  a  peculiar 
degree  a  bird  of  passion ;  ecstatic  in  song, 
furious  in  anger,  irresistibly  pitiful  in  lamen- 
tation. How  any  man  can  rob  a  thrasher's 
nest  with  that  heartbroken  whistle  in  his 
ears  is  more  than  I  can  imagine. 

Indigo-birds  are  here,  of  course.  Their 
number  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  this  coun- 
try, —  though  indeed  the  country  seems 
made  for  them,  as  it  is  also  for  chats  and 
white-eyed  vireos.  A  bit  farther  down  the 
valley,  as  I  come  to  the  maples  and  tupelos, 
with  their  grateful  density  of  shade,  a  wood 
pewee  sings,  and  then  a  wood  thrush.  At 
the  same  moment,  an  Acadian  flycatcher, 
who  is  always  here  (his  nest  is  building 
overhead,  as,  after  a  while,  I  discover),  sar 
lutes  me  with  a  quick,  spiteful  note.  "  No 
trespassing,"    he    says.       Landowners    are 


AN  IDLER  OK  MISSION ABY  RIDGE.     19 

pretty  much  alike.  I  pass  on,  but  not  far, 
and  beside  a  little  thicket  I  take  up  my 
stand,  and  wait.  It  is  pleasant  here,  and 
patience  will  be  rewarded.  Yes,  there  is 
a  magnolia  warbler,  my  second  Tennessee 
specimen ;  a  great  beauty,  but  without  that 
final  perfection  of  good  taste  (simplicity) 
which  distinguishes  the  Kentucky.  I  see 
him,  and  he  is  gone,  and  I  am  not  to  be 
drawn  into  a  chase.  Now  I  have  a  glimpse 
of  a  thrush  ;  an  olive-back,  from  what  I  can 
see,  but  I  cannot  be  sure.  Still  I  keep  my 
place.  A  blue-gray  gnatcatcher  is  drawling 
somewhere  in  the  leafy  treetops.  Thence, 
too,  a  cuckoo  fires  off  a  lively  fusillade  of 
kulcs,  —  a  yellow-bill,  by  that  token.  Next 
a  black-poll  warbler  shows  himself,  still 
far  from  home,  though  he  has  already  trav- 
eled a  long  way  northward;  and  then,  in 
one  of  the  basins  of  the  stream  (if  we  may 
call  it  a  stream,  in  which  there  is  no  sem- 
blance of  a  current),  a  chat  comes  to  wash 
himself.  Now  I  see  the  thrush  again ;  or 
rather,  I  hear  him  whistle,  and  by  moving  a 
step  or  two  I  get  him  with  my  eye.  He  is 
an  olive-back,  as  his  whistle  of  itself  would 
prove ;  and  presently  he  begins  to  sing,  to 


20     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  RIDGE. 

my  intense  delight.  Soon  two  others  v.re  in 
voice  with  him.  Am  I  on  Missionary  Kidge 
or  in  the  Crawford  Notch?  I  stand  mo- 
tionless, and  listen  and  listen,  but  my  enjoy- 
ment is  interrupted  by  a  new  pleasure.  A 
warbler,  evidently  a  female,  from  a  certain 
quietness  and  plainness,  and,  as  I  take  it, 
a  blue-winged  yellow,  though  I  have  never 
seen  a  female  of  that  species  (and  only  once 
a  male  —  three  days  ago  at  Chickamauga), 
comes  to  the  edge  of  the  pool,  and  in  an- 
other minute  her  mate  is  beside  her.  Him 
there  is  no  mistaking.  They  fly  away  in  a 
bit  of  lovers'  quarrel,  a  favorite  pastime 
with  mated  birds.  And  look!  there  is  a 
scarlet  tanager  ;  the  same  gorgeous  fellow, 
I  suppose,  that  was  here  two  days  ago,  and 
the  only  one  I  have  seen  in  this  lower  coun- 
try. What  a  beauty  he  is !  One  of  the  fin- 
est ;  handsomer,  so  I  think,  than  the  hand- 
somest of  his  all-red  cousins.  Now  he  calls 
chip-clieri\  and  now  he  breaks  into  song. 
There  he  falls  behind  ;  his  cousin's  voice  is 
less  hoarse,  and  his  style  less  labored  and 
jerky. 

Now  straight  before  me,  up  a  woody  aisle, 
an  olive-backed  thrush  stands  in  full  view 


AN  IDLEB   ON  MISSIONARY  BIDGE.     21 

and  a  perfect  light,  facing  me  and  singing, 
a  lovely  chorister.  Looking  at  liim,  I  catch 
a  flutter  of  yellow  and  black  among  the 
leaves  by  the  streamlet ;  a  Kentucky  warbler, 
I  suspect,  but  I  dare  not  go  forward  to  see, 
for  now  the  thrushes  are  in  chorus  again. 
By  and  by  he  comes  up  from  his  bath,  and 
falls  to  dressing  his  feathers:  not  a  Ken- 
tucky, after  all,  but  a  Canadian  flycatcher, 
my  first  one  here.  He,  too,  is  an  exquisite, 
with  fine  colors  finely  laid  on,  and  a  most 
becoming  jet  necklace.  While  I  am  admir- 
ing him,  a  blue  yellow-back  begins  to  prac- 
tice his  scales  —  still  a  little  blurred,  and 
needing  practice,  a  critic  might  say  —  some- 
where at  my  right  among  the  hillside  oaks ; 
another  exquisite,  a  beauty  among  beauties. 
I  see  him,  though  he  is  out  of  sight.  And 
what  seems  odd,  at  this  very  moment  his 
rival  as  a  singer  of  the  scale,  the  prairie  war- 
bler, breaks  out  on  the  other  side  of  me. 
Like  the  chat  and  the  indigo-bird,  he  is 
abundantly  at  home  hereabout. 

All  this  woodland  music  is  set  off  by 
spaces  of  silence,  sweeter  almost  than  the 
music  itself.  Here  is  peace  unbroken ;  here 
is  a  delicious  coolness,  while  the  sun  blazes 


22     AN  IDLEB   ON  MISSION ABY  BIDGE. 

upon  the  dusty  road  above  me.  How  amiable 
a  power  is  contrast  —  on  its  softer  side !  I 
think  of  the  eager,  bloody,  sweaty,  raging 
men,  who  once  stormed  up  these  slopes,  kill- 
ing and  being  killed.  The  birds  know  no- 
thing of  all  that.  It  might  have  been  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  The  very  trees  have  for- 
gotten it.  Two  or  three  cows  come  feeding 
down  the  glade,  with  the  lazy  tinkle  of  a  bell. 
And  now  my  new  friend,  the  blue-winged 
yellow  warbler,  sings  across  the  path  (across 
the  aisle,  I  was  going  to  say),  but  only  two 
or  three  times,  and  with  only  two  insignifi- 
cant lisping  syllables.  The  chary  soul !  He 
sings  to  the  eye,  I  suppose.  I  go  over  to 
look  at  him,  and  my  sudden  movement  star- 
tles the  thrushes,  who,  finding  themselves 
again  in  the  singers'  gallery,  cannot  refrain 
from  another  chorus.  At  the  same  moment 
the  Canadian  warbler  comes  into  sio^ht  asrain, 
this  time  in  a  tupelo.  The  blue-wings  are 
found  without  difficulty;  they  have  a  call 
like  the  black-and-white  creeper's.  A  single 
rough-winged  swallow  skims  above  the  tree- 
tops.  I  have  seen  him  here  before,  and  one 
or  two  others  like  him. 

As  I  return  to  the  bed  of  the  valley,  a 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.     23 

female  cardinal  grosbeak  flutters  suspiciously 
about  a  thicket  of  tall  blackberry  vines.  Her 
nest  should  be  there,  I  think,  but  a  hasty 
look  reveals  nothing.  Again  I  come  upon 
the  Canadian  warbler.  If  there  is  only  one 
here,  he  is  often  in  my  way.  I  sit  down 
upon  the  leaning,  almost  horizontal,  bole  of 
a  large  tupelo,  —  a  new  tree  to  me,  but  com- 
mon in  this  country.  The  thick  dark-colored 
bark  is  broken  deeply  into  innumerable  geo- 
metrical figures,  giving  the  tree  a  noticeable, 
venerable  appearance,  as  wrinldes  lend  dis- 
tinction and  character  to  an  old  man's  face. 
Another  species,  which,  as  far  as  I  can  tell, 
should  be  our  familiar  tupelo  of  Massachu- 
setts, is  equally  common,  —  a  smaller  tree, 
with  larger  leaves.  The  moisture  here,  slight 
as  it  now  is,  gives  the  place  a  vegetation  of 
its  own  and  a  peculiar  density  of  leafage. 
From  one  of  the  smaller  tupelos  (I  repeat 
that  word  as  often  as  I  can,  for  the  music  of 
it)  cross-vine  streamers  are  swinging,  full  of 
red-and-yellow  bells.  Scattered  thinly  over 
the  ground  are  yellow  starflowers,  the  com- 
mon houstonia,  a  pink  phlox,  and  some  un- 
known dark  yellow  blossom  a  little  like  the 
fall  dandelion,  —  Cynthia,  I  guess. 


24     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  RIDGE. 

My  thouglits  are  recalled  by  a  strong, 
sharp  chip  in  a  voice  I  do  not  recognize,  — 
a  Kentucky  warbler's,  as  presently  turns 
out.  He  walks  about  the  ground  amid  the 
short,  thin  grass,  seemingly  in  the  most  pla- 
cid of  moods ;  but  at  every  few  steps,  for 
some  inscrutable  reason,  he  comes  out  with 
that  quick,  peremptory  call.  And  all  the 
while  I  keep  saying  to  myself,  "What  a 
beauty !  "  But  my  forenoon  is  past.  I  rise 
to  go,  and  at  the  motion  he  takes  flight. 
Near  the  spring  the  goldfinches  are  still  in 
full  chorus,  and  just  beyond  them  in  the  path 
is  a  mourning  dove. 

That  was  a  good  season :  hymns  without 
words,  "  a  sermon  not  made  with  hands," 
and  the  world  shut  out.  Three  days  after- 
ward, fast  as  my  vacation  was  running  away, 
I  went  to  the  same  place  again.  The  olive- 
backed  thrushes  were  still  singing,  to  my 
surprise,  and  the  Kentucky  warblers  were 
still  feeding  in  the  grass.  The  scarlet  tana- 
ger  sang  (it  is  curious  how  much  oftener  I 
mention  him  than  the  comparatively  unfa- 
miliar, but  here  extremely  common  summer 
tanager),  the  cuckoo  called,  the  Acadian 
flycatcher  was  building  her  nest,  —  on  a  hori- 


WMiP^^rr  fWRART 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.     25 

zontal  limb  of  a  maple,  —  and  a  golclfinch 
warbled  as  if  he  could  never  cease.  A  veery 
sang,  also  (I  beard  but  one  other  in  Ten- 
nessee), with  a  chestnut-sided  warbler,  two 
redstarts  (one  of  them  in  the  modest  garb 
of  his  mother),  a  Carolina  chickadee,  a 
mocking  wren,  a  pine  warbler,  a  prairie  war- 
bler, and  a  catbird.  In  time,  probably,  all 
the  birds  for  a  mile  around  might  have  been 
heard  or  seen  beside  that  scanty  rill. 

To-day,  however,  my  mood  was  less  Sun- 
dayish  than  before,  and  in  spite  of  the  heat 
I  ventured  across  an  open  pasture,  —  where 
a  Bachman's  finch  was  singing  an  ingenious 
set  of  variations,  and  a  rabbit  stamped  with 
a  sudden  loudness  that  made  me  jump, — 
and  then  through  a  piece  of  wood,  till  I  came 
to  another  hollow  like  the  one  I  had  left, 
but  without  water,  and  therefore  less  thickly 
shaded.  Here  was  the  inevitable  thicket  of 
brambles  (since  I  speak  so  much  of  chats 
and  indigo-birds,  the  presence  of  a  sufficiency 
of  blackberry  bushes  may  be  taken  for 
granted),  and  I  waited  to  see  what  it  would 
bring  forth.  A  field  sparrow  sang  from  the 
hillside,  —  a  sweet  and  modest  tune  that 
went  straight  to  the  heart,  and  had  nothing 


26     AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  BIDGE. 

to  fear  from  a  comparison  with  Bacliman's 
finch  or  any  other.  What  a  contrast  in  this 
respect  between  him  and  his  gentle-seeming 
but  belligerent  and  tuneless  cousin  whom 
we  call  "  chippy."  ^  Here,  likewise,  were  a 
pair  of  complaining  Carolina  wrens  and  an 
Acadian  flycatcher.  A  thrush  excited  my 
curiosity,  having  the  look  of  a  gray-cheek, 
but  showing  a  buff  eye-ring;  and  while  I 
was  coaxing  him  to  whistle,  and  so  declare 
himself,  —  often  a  ready  means  of  identifica- 
tion, and  preferable  on  all  accounts  to  shoot- 
ing the  bird,  —  there  came  a  furious  out- 
burst from  the  depths  of  the  brier  patch, 
with  a  grand  flurry  of  wings :  a  large  bird 
and  two  smaller  ones  engaged  in  sudden 
battle,  as  well  as  I  could  make  out.  At 
the  close  of  the  7Jielee,  which  ended  as  ab- 
ruptly as  it  had  begun,  the  thicket  showed 
two  wrens,  a  white-throated  sparrow,  and  a 
female  cardinal.  The  cardinal  flew  away; 
the  affair  was  no  business  of  hers,  ap- 
parently; but  in  a  minute  she  was  back 
again,  scolding.  Then,  while  my  back  was 
turned,  everything  became  quiet ;  and  on  my 

1  If  I  could  have  my  way,  lie  should  be  known  as  the 
doorstep  sparrow.     The  name  would  fit  him  to  a  nicety. 


AN  IDLER   ON  MISSION ABY  EIDGE.     27 

stepping  up  to  reconnoitre,  there  she  sat  in 
her  nest  with  four  eggs  under  her.  At  that 
moment  a  chat's  loud  voice  was  heard,  and, 
turning  quickly,  I  caught  the  fellow  in  the 
midst  of  a  brilliant  display  of  his  clownish 
tricks,  ridicidous,  indescribable.  At  a  little 
distance,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  it  can  be 
a  bird,  that  dancing,  shapeless  thing,  balan- 
cing itself  in  the  air  with  dangling  legs  and 
prancing,  swaying  motions.  Well,  that  is 
the  chat's  way.  What  more  need  be  said  ? 
Every  creature  must  express  himself,  and 
birds  no  less  than  other  poets  are  entitled 
to  an  occasional  "  fine  frenzy." 

My  little  excursion  had  brought  me  no- 
thing new,  and,  like  all  my  similar  ventures 
on  Missionary  Kidge,  it  ended  in  defeat. 
The  sun  was  too  much  for  me ;  to  use  a  word 
suggested  by  the  place,  it  carried  too  many 
guns.  I  took  a  long  and  comfortable  siesta 
under  a  magnificent  chestnut  oak.  Then  it 
was  near  noon,  and,  with  my  umbrella  spread, 
I  mounted  the  hill  to  the  railway,  and  waited 
for  a  car. 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

Lookout  Mountain  was  at  first  a  dis- 
appointment.     I   went   home   discouraged. 
The  place  was  spoiled,  I  thought.     About 
the   fine   inn  were  cheap  cottages,  —  as   if 
one   had   come   to   a   second-class    summer 
resort ;  while  the  lower  slopes  of  the  moun- 
tain, directly  under  Lookout  Point  on  the 
side   toward  the  city,  were  given   up  to  a 
squalid  negro  settlement,  and,  of  all  things,  a 
patent-medicine  factory,  —  a  shameful  dese- 
cration, it  seemed  to  me.     I  was  half  ready 
to  say  I  would  go  there  no  more.     The  pros- 
pect was  beautiful,  —  so  much  there  was  no 
denying ;  but  the  air  was  thick  with  smoke, 
and,  what  counted  for  ten  times  more,  the 
eye  itself  was  overclouded.     A  few  northern 
warblers   were   chirping  in   the  evergreens 
along  the  edge  of  the  summit,  between  the 
inn  and  the  Point,  —  black-polls  and  bay- 
breasts,  with  black-throated  greens  and  Car- 
olina  wrens ;  and   near   them  I   saw   with 
pleasure  my  first  Tennessee  phoebes.     In  the 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  29 

street  car,  on  the  way  back  to  Chattanooga, 
I  had  for  my  fellow-passengers  a  group  of 
Confederate  veterans  from  different  parts  of 
the  South,  one  of  whom,  a  man  with  an 
empty  sleeve,  was  showing  his  comrades  an 
interesting  war-time  relic,  —  a  bit  of  stone 
bearing  his  own  initials.  He  had  cut  them 
in  the  rock  while  on  duty  at  the  Point  thirty 
years  before,  I  heard  him  say,  and  now,  re- 
membering the  spot,  and  finding  them  still 
there,  he  had  chipped  them  off  to  carry  home. 
These  are  all  the  memories  I  retain  of  my 
first  visit  to  a  famous  and  romantic  place 
that  I  had  long  desired  to  see. 

My  second  visit  was  little  more  remunera- 
tive, and  came  to  an  untimely  and  inglorious 
conclusion.  Not  far  from  the  inn  I  noticed 
what  seemed  to  be  the  beo:inninp:  of  an  old 
mountain  road.  It  would  bring  me  to  St. 
Elmo,  a  passing  cottager  told  me ;  and  I 
somehow  had  it  fast  in  my  mind  that  St. 
Elmo  was  a  particularly  wild  and  attractive 
woodland  retreat  somewhere  in  the  valley,  — 
a  place  where  a  pleasure-seeking  naturalist 
would  find  himself  happy  for  at  least  an 
hour  or  two,  if  the  mountain  side  should 
insufficiently  detain  him.     The  road   itself 


30  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

looked  uncommonly  inviting,  rough  and  de- 
serted, with  wild  crags  above  and  old  forest 
below  ;  and  without  a  second  thought  I  took 
it,  idling  downward  as  slowly  as  possible, 
minding  the  birds  and  plants,  or  sitting  for 
a  while,  as  one  shady  stone  after  another 
offered  coolness  and  a  seat,  to  enjoy  the 
silence  and  the  prospect.  Be  as  lazy  as  I 
could,  however,  the  road  soon  gave  signs  of 
coming  to  an  end ;  for  Lookout  Mountain, 
although  it  covers  much  territory  and  pre- 
sents a  mountainous  front,  is  of  a  very  mod- 
est elevation.  And  at  the  end  of  the  way 
there  was  no  sylvan  retreat,  but  a  village ; 
yes,  the  same  dusty  little  suburb  that  I  had 
passed,  and  looked  away  from,  on  my  way 
up.  That  was  St.  Elmo !  —  and,  Avith  my 
luncheon  still  in  my  pocket,  I  boarded  the 
first  car  for  the  city.  One  consolation  re- 
mained :  I  had  lived  a  pleasant  hour,  and 
the  mountain  road  had  made  three  additions 
to  my  local  ornithology,  —  a  magnolia  war- 
bler, a  Blackburnian  warbler,  and  a  hairy 
woodpecker. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  laugh  at 
myself,  and  try  again  ;  but  it  was  almost  a 
week  before  I  found  the  opportunity.     Then 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  31 

(May  7)  I  made  a  day  of  it  on  the  mountain, 
mostly  in  the  woods  along  the  western  bluffs. 
An  oven-bird's  song  drew  me  in  that  direc- 
tion, to  begin  with ;  and  just  as  the  singer 
had  shown  himself,  and  been  rewarded  with 
an  entry  as  "  No.  79  "  in  my  Tennessee  cat- 
alogue, a  cuckoo,  farther  away,  broke  into  a 
shuffling  introductory  measure  that  marked 
him  at  once  as  a  black-bill.  Till  now  I  had 
seen  yellow-bills  only,  and  though  the  voice 
was  perhaps  a  sufficient  identification,  a 
double  certainty  would  be  better,  especially 
in  the  retrospect.  Luckily  it  was  a  short 
chase,  and  there  sat  the  bird,  his  snowy 
throat  swelling  as  he  cooed,  while  his  red 
eye-ring  and  his  abbreviated  tail-spots  gave 
him  a  clear  title  to  count  as  "  No.  80." 

As  I  approached  the  precipitous  western 
edge  of  the  mountain,  I  heard,  just  below, 
the  sharp,  wiry  voice  of  a  Blackburnian 
warbler ;  a  most  splendid  specimen,  for  in 
a  moment  more  his  orange-red  throat  shone 
like  fire  among  the  leaves.  From  farther 
down  rose  the  hoarse  notes  of  a  black- 
throated  blue  warbler  and  two  or  three  black- 
throated  greens. 

Here  were  comfortable,  well-shaded  boul- 


32  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

ders  and  deliglitf  ul  prospects,  —  a  place  to 
stay  in  ;  but  behind  me  stood  a  grove  of 
small  pine-trees,  out  of  which  came  now  and 
then  a  warbler's  c/i^^j  ;  and  in  May,  with 
everything  on  the  move,  and  anything  pos- 
sible, invitations  of  that  kind  are  not  to  be 
refused.  Warbler  species  are  many,  and 
there  is  always  another  to  hope  for.  I 
turned  to  the  pines,  therefore,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  was  soon  deeply  engaged  with  a 
charming  bevy  of  northward-bound  passen- 
gers,—  myrtle-birds,  palm  warblers,  black- 
throated  blues  (of  both  sexes),  a  female 
Cape  May  warbler  (the  first  of  her  sex  that 
I  had  seen)  magnolias,  bay-breasts,  and 
many  black-polls.  It  makes  a  short  story 
in  the  telling  ;  but  it  was  long  in  the  doing, 
and  yielded  more  excitement  than  I  dare 
try  to  describe.  To  and  fro  I  went  among 
the  low  trees  (their  lowness  a  most  for- 
tunate circumstance),  slowly  and  with  all 
quietness,  putting  my  glass  upon  one  bird 
after  another  as  something  stirred  among  the 
needles,  and  hoping  every  moment  for  some 
glorious  surprise.  In  particular,  I  hoped 
for  a  cerulean  warbler ;  but  this  was  not  the 
cerulean' s  day,  and,  if  I  had  but  known  it, 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  33 

these  were  not  tlie  cerulean's  trees.  None 
but  enthusiasts  in  the  same  line  will  be  able 
to  appreciate  the  delight  of  such  innocent 
"collecting,"  —  birds  in  the  memory  instead 
of  specimens  in  a  bag.  Even  on  one's  home 
beat  it  quickens  the  blood ;  how  much  more, 
then,  in  a  new  field,  where  a  man  is  almost  a 
stranger  to  himself,  and  rarities  and  novelties 
seem  but  the  order  of  the  day.  Again  and 
again,  morning  and  afternoon,  I  traversed 
the  little  wood,  leaving  it  between  whiles  for 
a  rest  under  the  big  oaks  on  the  edge  of  the 
cliffs,  whence,  through  green  vistas,  I  gazed 
upon  the  farms  of  Lookout  Valley  and 
the  mountains  beyond.  A  scarlet  tanager 
called,  —  my  second  one  here,  —  wood  thrush 
voices  rang  through  the  mountain  side  forest, 
a  single  thrasher  was  doing  his  bravest  from 
the  tip  of  a  pine  (our  "  brown  mocking- 
bird "  is  anything  but  a  skulker  when  the 
lyrical  mood  is  on  him),  while  wood  pewees, 
red-eyed  vireos,  yellow-throated  vireos,  black- 
and-white  creepers,  and  I  do  not  remember 
what  else,  joined  in  the  chorus.  Just  after 
noon  an  oven-bird  gave  out  his  famous  aerial 
warble.  To  an  aspiring  soul  even  a  moun- 
tain top  is  but  a  perch,  a  place  from  which 
to  take  wing. 


34  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

All  these  birds,  it  will  be  noticed,  were 
suet  as  I  might  have  seen  in  Massachusetts ; 
and  indeed,  the  general  appearance  of  things 
about  me  was  pleasantly  homelike.  Here 
was  much  of  the  pretty  striped  wintergreen, 
a  special  favorite  of  mine,  with  bird-foot 
violets,  the  common  white  saxifrage  (dear 
to  memory  as  the  "  Mayflower  "  of  my  child- 
hood), the  common  wild  geranium  (cranes- 
bill,  which  we  were  told  was  "  good  for 
canker  "),  and  maple-leaved  viburnum.  One 
of  the  loveliest  flowers  was  the  pink  oxalis, 
and  one  of  the  commonest  was  a  pink  phlox ; 
but  I  was  most  pleased,  perhaps,  with  the 
white  stonecrop  (^Sedum  ternaturn),  patches 
of  which  matted  the  ground,  and  just  now 
were  in  full  bloom.  The  familiar  look  of 
this  plant  was  a  puzzle  to  me.  I  cannot 
remember  to  have  seen  it  often  in  gardens, 
and  I  am  confident  that  I  never  found  it  be- 
fore in  a  wild  state  except  once,  fifteen  years 
ago,  at  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Potomac. 
Yet  here  on  Lookout  Mountain  it  seemed 
almost  as  much  an  old  friend  as  the  saxifrage 
or  the  cranesbill. 

I  ate  my  luncheon  on  Sunset  Rock,  which 
literally  overhangs  the  mountain  side,  and 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  35 

commands  the  finest  of  valley  prospects; 
and  tlien,  after  another  turn  through  the 
pines,  where  the  warblers  were  still  busy 
with  their  all-day  meal,  —  but  not  the  new 
warbler,  for  which  I  was  still  looking,  —  I 
crossed  the  summit  and  made  the  descent 
by  the  St.  Elmo  road,  as  before.  How  long 
I  was  on  the  way  I  am  unable  to  tell ;  I  had 
learned  the  brevity  of  the  road,  and,  like  a 
schoolboy  with  his  tart,  I  made  the  most 
of  it.  Midway  down  I  caught  sudden  sight 
of  an  olive  bird  in  the  upper  branch  of  a 
tree,  with  something  black  about  the  crown 
and  the  cheek.  "  What 's  that  ?  "  I  exclaimed 5 
and  on  the  instant  the  stranger  flew  across 
the  road  and  up  the  steep  mountain  side. 
I  pushed  after  him  in  hot  haste,  over  the 
huge  boulders,  and  there  he  stood  on  the 
ground,  singing,  —  a  Kentucky  warbler. 
Seeing  him  so  hastily,  and  on  so  high  a 
perch,  and  missing  his  yellow  under-parts,  I 
had  failed  to  recognize  him.  As  it  was,  I 
now  heard  his  song  for  the  first  time,  and 
rejoiced  to  find  it  worthy  of  its  beautiful 
author  :  klurwee,  klurvjee,  Jdurivee,  Murwee^ 
hlurwee  ;  a  succession  of  clear,  sonorous  dis- 
syllables, in  a  fuller  voice  than  most  warblers 


36  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

possess,  and  with  uo  flourish  before  or  after. 
Like  the  bird's  dress,  it  was  perfect  in  its 
simplicity.  I  felt  thankful,  too,  that  I  had 
waited  till  now  to  hear  it.  Things  should 
be  desired  before  they  are  enjoyed.  It  was 
another  case  of  the  schoolboy  and  his  tart ; 
and  I  went  home  good-humored.  Lookout 
Mountain  was  not  wholly  ruined,  after  all. 

The  next  day  found  me  there  again,  to 
my  own  surprise,  for  I  had  promised  myself 
a  trip  down  the  river  to  Shellmovmd.  In 
all  the  street  cars,  as  well  as  in  the  city 
newspapers,  this  excursion  was  set  forth  as 
supremely  enjoyable,  a  luxury  on  no  account 
to  be  missed,  —  a  fine  commodious  steamer, 
and  all  the  usual  concomitants.  The  kind 
people  with  whom  I  was  sojourning,  on  Cam- 
eron Hill,  hastened  the  family  breakfast 
that  I  might  be  in  season ;  but  on  arriving 
at  the  wharf  I  found  no  sign  of  the  steamer, 
and,  after  sundry  attempts  to  ascertain  the 
condition  of  affairs,  I  learned  that  the 
steamer  did  not  run  now.  The  river  was 
no  longer  high  enough,  it  was  explained ;  a 
smaller  boat  would  go,  or  might  be  expected 
to  go,  some  hours  later.  Little  disposed  to 
hang  about  the  landing  for  several  hours, 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  37 

and  feeling  no  assurance  that  so  doing  would 
bring  me  any  nearer  to  Shellmound,  I  made 
my  way  back  to  the  Read  House,  and  took 
a  car  for  Lookout  Mountain.  In  it  I  sat 
face  to  face  with  the  same  conspicuous  pla- 
card, announcing  an  excursion  for  that  day 
by  the  large  and  commodious  steamer  So- 
and-So,  from  such  a  wharf,  at  eight  o'clock. 
But  I  then  noticed  that  intending  passen- 
gers were  invited,  in  smaller  type,  to  call  at 
the  office  of  the  company,  where  doubtless 
it  would  be  politely  confided  to  them  that 
the  advertisement  was  a  "  back  number." 
So  the  mistake  was  my  own,  after  all,  and, 
as  the  American  habit  is,  I  had  been  blam- 
ing the  servants  of  the  public  unjustly. 

I  was  no  sooner  on  the  summit  than  I 
hastened  to  the  pine  wood.  At  first  it 
seemed  to  be  empty,  but  after  a  little,  hear- 
ing the  drawling  kree^  hree^  kree,  of  a  black- 
throated  blue,  I  followed  it,  and  found  the 
bird.  Next  a  magnolia  dropped  into  sight, 
and  then  a  red-cheeked  Cape  May,  the  sec- 
ond one  I  had  ever  seen,  after  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  of  expectancy.  He  threaded 
a  leafless  branch  back  and  forth  on  a  level 
with   my   eyes.     I  was   glad   I  had  come. 


38  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

Soon  another  showed  himself,  and  presently 
it  appeared  that  the  wood,  as  men  speak  of 
such  things,  was  full  of  them.  There  were 
black-polls,  also,  with  a  Blackburnian,  a  bay- 
breast,  and  a  good  number  of  palm  warblers, 
(typical  'palmarum^  to  judge  from  the  pale 
tints);  but  especially  there  were  Cape  Mays, 
including  at  least  two  females.  As  to  the 
number  of  males  it  is  impossible  to  speak ; 
I  never  had  more  than  two  under  my  eye 
at  once,  but  I  came  upon  them  continually, 
—  they  were  always  in  motion,  of  course, 
being  warblers,  —  till  finally,  as  I  put  my 
glass  on  another  one,  I  caught  myself  say- 
ing, in  a  tone  of  disaj^pointment,  "  Only  a 
Cape  May."  But  yesterday  I  might  as  well 
have  spoken  of  a  million  dollars  as  "  only  a 
million."  So  soon  does  novelty  wear  off. 
The  magnolia  and  the  Blackburnian  were  in 
high  feather,  and  made  a  gorgeous  pair  as 
chance  brought  them  side  by  side  in  the 
same  tree.  They  sang  with  much  freedom ; 
but  the  Cape  Mays  kept  silence,  to  my  deep 
regret,  notwithstanding  the  philosophical 
remarks  just  now  volunteered  about  the  ad- 
vantages derivable  from  a  bird's  gradual 
disclosure  of  himself.     Such  pieces  of  wis- 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  39 

dom,  I  have  noticed,  when  by  chance  they 
do  not  fall  into  the  second  or  third  person, 
are  commonly  applied  to  the  past  rather 
than  the  present;  a  man's  past  being,  in 
effect,  not  himself,  bnt  another.  In  morals, 
as  in  archery,  the  target  should  be  set  at  a 
fair  distance.  The  Cape  May's  song  is  next 
to  nothing,  —  suggestive  of  the  black-poll's, 
I  am  told,  —  but  I  would  gladly  have  bought 
a  ticket  to  hear  it. 

The  place  might  have  been  made  on  pur- 
pose for  the  use  to  which  it  was  now  put. 
The  pinery,  surrounded  by  hard-wood  for- 
est, was  like  an  island ;  and  the  warblers, 
for  the  most  past,  had  no  thought  of  leaving 
it.  Had  they  been  feeding  in  the  hard 
wood,  —  miles  of  tall  trees,  —  I  should  have 
lost  them  in  short  order.  At  the  same  time, 
the  absence  of  undergrowth  enabled  me  to 
move  about  with  all  quietness,  so  that  none 
of  them  took  the  least  alarm.  Not  a  black- 
throated  green  was  seen  or  heard,  though 
yesterday  they  had  been  in  force  both 
among  the  pines  and  along  the  cliffs.  A 
flock  of  myrtle  warblers  were  surprisingly 
late,  it  seemed  to  me ;  but  it  was  my  last 
sight  of  them. 


40  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  I  was  not 
exploring  Lookout  Mountain,  and  am  in  no 
position  to  set  forth  its  beauties.  It  is 
eighty  odd  miles  long,  we  are  told,  and  in 
some  places  more  than  a  dozen  miles  wide. 
I  visited  nothing  but  the  northern  point,  the 
Tennessee  end,  the  larger  part  of  the  moun- 
tain being  in  Georgia  ;  and  even  while  there 
I  looked  twice  at  the  birds,  and  once  at  the 
mountain  itself. 

At  noon,  I  lay  for  a  long  time  upon  a 
flat  boulder  under  the  tall  oaks  of  the  west- 
ern bluff,  looking  down  upon  the  lower 
woods,  now  in  tender  new  leaf  and  most 
exquisitely  colored.  There  are  few  fairer 
sights  than  a  wooded  mountain  side  seen 
from  above  ;  only  one  must  not  be  too  far 
above,  and  the  forest  should  be  mainly  de- 
ciduous. The  very  thought  brings  before 
my  eyes  the  long,  green  slopes  of  Mount 
Mansfield  as  they  show  from  the  road  near 
the  summit,  —  beauty  inexpressible  and 
never  to  be  forgotten ;  and  miles  of  autumn 
color  on  the  sides  of  Kinsman,  Cannon, 
and  Lafayette,  as  I  have  enjoyed  it  by  the 
hour,  stretched  in  the  September  sunshine  on 
the  rocks  of  Bald  Mountain.     Perhaps  the 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  41 

eartli  itself  will  never  be  fully  enjoyed  till 
we  are  somewhere  above  it.  The  Lookout 
woods,  as  I  now  saw  them,  were  less  mag- 
nificent in  sweep,  but  hardly  less  beautiful. 
And  below  them  was  the  valley  bottom,  — 
Lookout  Valley,  once  the  field  of  armies, 
now  the  abode  of  peaceful  industry :  acres 
of  brown  earth,  newly  sown,  with  no  trace 
of  greenness  except  the  hedgerows  along  the 
brooks  and  on  the  banks  of  Lookout  Creek. 
And  beyond  the  valley  was  Raccoon  Moun- 
tain, wooded  throughout ;  and  behind  that, 
far  away,  the  Cumberland  range,  blue  with 
distance. 

A  phoebe  came  and  perched  at  my  elbow, 
dropping  a  curtsey  with  old-fashioned  polite- 
ness by  way  of  "  How  are  you,  sir  ?  "  and  a 
little  afterward  was  calling  earnestly  from 
below.  This  is  one  of  the  characteristic 
birds  of  the  moimtain,  and  marks  well  the 
difference  in  latitude  which  even  a  slight 
elevation  produces.  I  found  it  nowhere  in 
the  valley  country,  but  it  was  common  on 
Lookout  and  on  Walden's  Eidge.  Then, 
behind  me  on  the  summit,  another  north- 
ern bird,  the  scarlet  tanager,  struck  up  a 
labored,   rasping,   breatliless    tune,   hearty. 


42  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

but  broken  and  forced.  I  say  labored  and 
breathless ;  but,  happily,  the  singer  was  un- 
aware of  his  infirmity  (or  can  it  be  I  was 
wrong?),  and  continued  without  interrup- 
tion for  at  least  half  an  hour.  If  he  was 
uncomfortably  short-breathed,  he  was  very 
agreeably  long-winded.  Oven-birds  sang  at 
intervals  throughout  the  day,  and  once  I 
heard  again  the  black-billed  cuckoo.  Yes, 
Hooker  was  right :  Lookout  Mountain  is 
Northern,  not  Southern.  But  then,  as  if  to 
show  that  it  is  not  exactly  Yankee  land,  in 
spite  of  oven-bird  and  black-bill,  and  not- 
withstanding all  that  Hooker  and  his  men 
may  have  done,  a  cardinal  took  a  long  turn 
at  whistling,  and  a  Carolina  wren  came  to 
his  support  with  a  cTieeiy,  cheery »  A  far- 
away crow  was  cawing  somewhere  down  the 
valley,  no  very  common  sound  hereabout ; 
a  red-eye,  our  great  American  missionary, 
was  exhorting,  of  course ;  a  black-poll,  on  his 
way  to  British  America,  whispered  some- 
thing, it  was  impossible  to  say  what ;  and  a 
squirrel  barked.  I  lay  so  still  that  a  black- 
and-white  creeper  took  me  for  a  part  of  the 
boulder,  and  alighted  on  the  nearest  tree- 
trunk.     He  goes   round  a  bole  just  as  he 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  43 

sings,  in  corkscrew  fashion.  Now  and  then 
I  caught  some  of  the  louder  phrases  of  a 
distant  brown  thrush,  and  once,  when  every 
one  else  fell  silent,  a  catbird  burst  out  spas- 
modically with  a  few  halting,  disjointed  ec- 
centricities, highly  characteristic  of  a  bird 
who  can  sing  like  a  master  when  he  will, 
but  who  seems  oftener  to  enjoy  talking  to 
himself.  Lizards  rustled  into  sight  with 
startling  suddenness ;  and  one  big  fellow 
disappeared  so  instantaneously  —  in  "less 
than  no  time,"  as  the  Yankee  phrase  is  — 
that  I  thought  "  quick  as  a  lizard  "  might 
well  enough  become  an  adage.  Here  and 
there  I  remarked  a  chestnut-tree,  the  burs 
of  last  year  still  hanging;  and  chestnut 
oaks  were  among  the  largest  and  handsom- 
est trees  of  the  wood,  as  they  were  among 
the  commonest.  The  temperature  was  per- 
fect, —  so  says  my  penciled  note.  Let  the 
confession  not  be  overlooked,  after  all  my 
railins:  at  the  fierce  Tennessee  sun.  It 
made  all  the  pleasure  of  the  hour,  too,  that 
there  were  no  troublesome  insects.  I  had 
been  in  that  country  for  ten  days,  the  mer- 
cury had  been  much  of  the  time  above  90°, 
and  I  had  not  seen  ten  mosquitoes. 


44  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

I  left  my  boulder  at  last,  tliough  it  would 
have  been  good  to  remain  there  till  night, 
and  wandered  along  the  bluffs  to  the  Point. 
Here  it  was  apparent  at  once  that  the  wind 
had  shifted.  For  the  first  time  I  caught 
sight  of  lofty  mountains  in  the  northeast ; 
the  Great  Smokies,  I  was  told,  and  could 
well  believe  it.  I  sat  down  straightway  and 
looked  at  them,  and  had  I  known  how 
things  would  turn,  I  would  have  looked  at 
them  longer ;  for  in  all  my  three  weeks' 
sojourn  in  Chattanooga,  that  was  the  only 
half -day  in  which  the  atmosphere  was  even 
approximately  clear.  It  was  unfortunate, 
but  I  consoled  myself  with  the  charm  of  the 
foreground,  —  a  charm  at  once  softened  and 
heightened,  with  something  of  the  magic  of 
distance,  by  the  very  conditions  that  veiled 
the  horizon  and  drew  it  closer  about  us. 

It  is  truly  a  beautiful  world  that  we  see 
from  Lookout  Point :  the  city  and  its  sub- 
urbs; the  river  with  its  broad  meander- 
ings,  and,  directly  at  our  feet,  its  great  Moc- 
casin Bend ;  the  near  mountains, —  Raccoon 
and  Sand  mountains  beyond  Lookout  Val- 
ley, and  Walden's  Eidge  across  the  river ; 
and   everywhere  in  the  distance   liills   and 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  45 

high  mountains,  range  beyond  range,  cul- 
minating in  the  Cumberland  Mountains  in 
one  direction,  and  the  Great  Smokies  in 
another.  And  as  we  look  at  the  fair  picture 
we  think  of  what  was  done  here,  —  of  his- 
toric persons  and  historic  deeds.  At  the 
foot  of  the  cliffs  on  which  we  stand  is  White 
House  plateau,  the  battlefield  of  Lookout 
Mountain.  Chattanooga  itself  is  spread 
out  before  us,  with  Orchard  Knob,  Cameron 
Hill,  and  the  national  cemetery.  Yonder 
stretches  the  long  line  of  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  farther  south,  recognizable  by  at  least 
one  of  the  government  towers,  is  the  battle- 
field of  Chickamauga.  Here,  if  anywhere,  we 
may  see  j)laces  that  war  has  made  sacred. 

The  feeling  of  all  this  is  better  enjoyed 
after  one  has  grown  oblivious  to  the  things 
which  at  first  do  so  much  to  cheapen  the 
mountain,  —  the  hotels,  the  photographers' 
shanties,  the  placards,  the  hurrying  tourists, 
and  the  general  air  of  a  place  given  over  to 
showmen.  Much  of  this  seeming  desecra- 
tion is  unavoidable,  perhaps  ;  at  all  events, 
it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  overlook  it,  as, 
fortunately,  by  the  time  of  my  third  visit  I 
was  pretty  well  able  to  do.     If  that  proves 


46  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

impossible,  if  the  visitor  is  of  too  sensitive  a 
temperament,  —  to  call  liis  weakness  by  no 
worse  a  name,  —  he  can  at  least  betake  him- 
self to  the  woods,  and  out  of  them  see 
enough,  as  I  did  from  my  boulder,  to  repay 
him  for  all  his  trouble. 

The  battlefield,  as  has  been  said,  lies  at 
the  base  of   the  perpendicular  cliffs  which 
make  the  bold  northern  tip  of  the  mountain, 
—  Lookout   Point.     I   must  walk  over   it, 
though  there  is  little  to  see,  and  after  a  final 
look   at   the   magnificent    panorama   I   de- 
scended the  steps  to   the  head  of  the  "in- 
cline," or,  as  I  should  say,  the  cable  road. 
The  car  dropped  me  at  a  sentry-box  marked 
"  Columbus  "  (it  was  easy  to  guess  in  what 
year  it   had   been   named),    and   thence   I 
strolled   across  the  plateau,  —  so  called   in 
the  narratives  of  the  battle,  though  it  is  far 
from   level,  —  past   the   Craven  house  and 
Cloud  Fort,  to   the  western   slope   looking 
down  into  Lookout  Valley,  out  of  which  the 
Union  forces  marched  to  the  assault.     The 
place  was  peaceful  enough  on  that  pleasant 
May  afternoon.     The  air  was  full  of  music, 
and  just  below  me  were   apple   and   peach 
orchards  and  a  vineyard. 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  47 

In  such  surroundings,  lialf  wild,  half  tame, 
I  had  hope  of  finding  some  strange  bird  ;  it 
would  be  pleasant  to  associate  him  with  a 
spot  so  famous.  But  the  voices  were  all 
familiar :  wood  thrushes,  Carolina  wrens, 
bluebirds,  summer  tanagers,  catbirds,  a 
Maryland  yellow-throat,  vireos  (red-eyes  and 
white-eyes),  goldfinches,  a  field  sparrow  (the 
dead  could  want  no  sweeter  requiem  than  he 
was  chanting,  but  the  wood  pewee  should 
have  been  here  also),  indigo-birds,  and  chats. 
In  one  of  the  wildest  and  roughest  places 
a  Kentucky  warbler  started  to  sing,  and  I 
plunged  downward  among  the  rocks  and 
bushes  (here  was  maiden-hair  fern,  I  remem- 
ber), hoping  to  see  him.  It  was  only  my 
second  hearing  of  the  song,  and  it  would 
be  prudent  to  verify  my  recollection;  but 
the  music  ceased,  and  I  saw  nothing.  At  the 
turn,  where  the  land  begins  to  decline  west- 
ward, I  came  to  a  low,  semicircular  wall 
of  earth.  Here,  doubtless,  on  that  fateful 
November  morning,  when  clouds  covered  the 
mountain  sides,  the  Confederate  troops 
meant  to  make  a  stand  against  the  invader. 
Now  a  wilderness  of  young  blue-green  per- 
simmon-trees  had   sprung  up  about   it,   as 


48  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

about  tlie  Craven  house  was  a  similar  growth 
of  sassafras.  I  had  abeady  noticed  the  ex- 
treme abundance  of  sassafras  (shrubs  rather 
than  trees)  in  all  this  country,  and  especially 
on  Missionary  Eidge. 

With  my  thoughts  full  of  the  past,  while 
my  senses  kept  watch  of  the  present,  I  re- 
turned slowly  to  the  "  incline,"  where  I  had 
five  minutes  to  wait  for  a  downward  car.  It 
had  been  a  good  day,  a  day  worth  remember- 
ing ;  and  just  then  there  came  to  my  ear  the 
new  voice  for  which  I  had  been  on  the  alert : 
a  warbler's  song,  past  all  mistake,  sharp, 
thin,  vivacious,  in  perhaps  eight  syllables, 
—  a  song  more  like  the  redstart's  than  any- 
tliing  else  I  could  think  of.  The  singer  was 
in  a  tall  tree,  but  by  the  best  of  luck,  seeing 
how  short  my  time  was,  the  opera-glass  fell 
upon  him  almost  of  itself,  —  a  hooded  war- 
bler ;  my  first  sight  of  him  in  full  dress  (he 
might  have  been  rigged  out  for  a  masquer- 
ade, I  thought),  as  it  was  my  first  hearing 
of  his  song.  If  it  had  been  also  my  last 
hearing  of  it,  I  might  have  written  that  the 
hooded  warbler,  though  a  frequenter  of  low 
thickets,  chooses  a  lofty  perch  to  sing  from. 
So  easy  is  it  to  generalize ;  that  is,  to  tell 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  49 

more  than  we  know.  The  fellow  sang  again 
and  again,  and,  to  my  great  satisfaction, 
a  Kentucky  joined  him,  —  a  much  better 
singer  in  all  respects,  and  much  more  be- 
comingly dressed;  but  I  gave  thanks  for 
both.  Then  the  car  stopped  for  me,  and  we 
coasted  to  the  base,  where  the  customary 
gang  of  negroes,  heavily  chained,  were  re- 
pairing the  highway,  while  the  guard,  a 
white  man,  stood  over  them  with  a  rifle.  It 
was  a  strange  spectacle  to  my  eyes,  and  sug- 
gested a  considerable  postponement  of  the 
millennium  ;  but  I  was  glad  to  see  the  men 
at  work. 

Two  days  afterward  (May  10),  in  spite  of 
"  thunder  in  the  morning  "  and  one  of  the 
safest  of  weather  saws,  I  made  my  final  ex- 
cursion to  Lookout,  going  at  once  to  the 
warblers'  pines.  There  were  few  birds  in 
them.  At  all  events,  I  found  few;  but 
there  is  no  telling  what  might  have  happened, 
if  the  third  specimen  that  came  under  my 
glass  —  after  a  black-poll  and  a  bay-breast 
—  had  not  monopolized  my  attention  till  I 
was  driven  to  seek  shelter.  That  was  the 
day  when  I  needed  a  gun  ;  for  I  suppose  it 
must  be  confessed  that  even  an  opera-glass 


50  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

observer,  no  matter  how  much  in  love  he 
may  be  with  his  particular  method  of  study, 
and  no  matter  how  determined  he  may  be  to 
stick  to  it,  sees  a  time  once  in  a  great  while 
when  a  bird  in  the  hand  would  be  so  much 
better  than  two  in  the  bush  that  his  fingers 
fairly  itch  for  something  to  shoot  with. 
From  what  I  know  of  one  such  man,  I  am 
sure  it  would  be  exaggerating  their  tender- 
ness of  heart  to  imagine  observers  of  this 
kind  incapable  of  taking  a  bird's  life  under 
any  circumstances.  In  fact,  it  may  be 
partly  a  distrust  of  their  own  self-restraint, 
under  the  provocations  of  curiosity,  that 
makes  them  eschew  the  use  of  firearms  alto- 
gether. 

My  mystery  on  the  present  occasion  was 
a  female  warbler,  —  of  so  much  I  felt  rea- 
sonably assured ;  but  by  what  name  to  call 
her,  that  was  a  riddle.  Her  uj)per  parts 
were  "  not  olive,  but  of  a  neutral  bluish 
gray,"  with  light  wing-bars,  "  not  conspicu- 
ous, but  distinct,"  while  her  lower  parts 
were  "  dirty,  but  unstreaked."  What  at 
once  impressed  me  was  her  "bareheaded 
appearance "  (I  am  quoting  my  penciled 
memorandum),  with  a  big  eye  and  a  light 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  51 

eye-ring,  —  like  a  ruby-crowned  kinglet,  for 
wliich,  at  the  first  glance,  I  mistook  ker. 
If  my  notes  made  mention  of  any  dark 
streaks  or  spots  underneath,  I  would  pluck 
up  courage  and  hazard  a  glorious  guess,  to 
be  taken  for  what  it  might  be  worth.  As  it 
is,  I  leave  guessing  to  men  better  qualified, 
for  whose  possible  edification  or  amusement 
I  have  set  down  these  particulars. 

While  I  was  pursuing  the  stranger,  but 
not  till  I  had  seen  her  again  and  again,  and 
secured  as  many  "  points  "  as  a  longer  ogling 
seemed  likely  to  afford  me,  it  began  thun- 
dering ominously  out  of  ugly  clouds,  and  I 
edged  toward  some  woodland  cottages  not 
far  distant.  Then  the  big  drops  fell,  and  I 
took  to  my  heels,  reaching  a  piazza  just  in 
time  to  escape  a  torrent  against  which  pine- 
trees  and  umbrella  combined  would  have 
been  as  nothing.  The  lady  of  the  house  and 
her  three  dogs  received  me  most  hospitably, 
and  as  the  rain  lasted  for  some  time  we  had 
a  pleasant  conversation  (I  can  speak  for  one, 
at  least)  about  dogs  in  general  and  particu- 
lar (a  common  interest  is  the  soul  of  talk)  ; 
in  illustration  and  furtherance  of  which  the 
spaniel  of  the  party,  somewhat  against  his 


52  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

will,  was  induced  to  "  sit  up  like  a  gentle- 
man," while  I  boasted  modestly  of  another 
spaniel,  Antony  by  name,  who  could  do 
that  and  plenty  of  tricks  beside,  —  a  perfect 
wonder  of  a  dog,  in  short.  Thus  happily 
launched,  we  went  on  to  discuss  the  climate 
of  Tennessee  (whatever  may  be  the  soul  of 
talk,  the  weather  supplies  it  with  members 
and  a  bodily  substance)  and  the  charms  of 
Lookout  Mountain.  She  lived  there  the 
year  round,  she  said  (most  of  the  cottagers 
make  the  place  a  summer  resort  only),  and 
always  found  it  pleasant.  In  winter  it 
was  n't  so  cold  there  as  down  below  ;  at  any 
rate,  it  did  n't  feel  so  cold,  —  which  is  the 
main  thing,  of  course.  Sometimes  when  she 
went  to  the  city,  it  seemed  as  if  she  should 
freeze,  although  she  had  n't  thought  of  its 
being  cold  before  she  left  home.  It  is  one 
form  of  patriotism,  I  suppose,  —  parochial 
patriotism,  perhaps  we  may  call  it,  —  that 
makes  us  stand  up  pretty  stoutly  for  our 
own  dwelling-place  before  strangers,  how- 
ever we  may  gTumble  against  it  among  our- 
selves. In  the  present  instance,  however, 
no  such  qualifying  explanation  seemed  neces- 
sary.    In  general,  I  was  quite  prepared  to 


LOOKOUT  mountain:  53 

believe  that  life  on  a  mountain  top,  in  a  cot- 
tage in  a  grove,  would  be  found  every  whit 
as  agreeable  as  my  hostess  pictured  it. 

The  rain  slackened  after  a  while,  though 
it  was  long  in  ceasing  altogether,  and  I  went 
to  the  nearest  railway  station  (Sunset  Sta- 
tion, I  believe)  and  waited  haK  an  hour  for 
a  train  to  the  Point,  chatting  meanwhile 
with  the  young  man  in  charge  of  the  relic- 
counter.  Then,  at  the  Point,  I  waited  again 
—  this  time  to  enjoy  the  prospect  and  see 
how  the  weather  would  turn  —  till  a  train 
passed  on  "  the  broad  gauge  "  below.  Just 
beyond  Fort  Cloud  it  ran  into  a  fine  old 
forest,  and  a  sudden  notion  took  me  to  go 
straight  down  through  the  woods  and  spend 
the  rest  of  the  day  rambling  in  that  direction. 
The  weather  had  still  a  dubious  aspect,  but, 
with  motive  enough,  some  things  can  be 
trusted  to  Providence,  and,  the  steepness  of 
the  descent  accelerating  my  pace,  I  was  soon 
on  the  sleepers,  after  which  it  was  but  a  little 
way  into  the  woods.  Once  there,  I  quickly 
forgot  everything  else  at  the  sound  of  a  new 
sono".  But  loas  it  new  ?  It  bore  some  re- 
semblance  to  the  ascending  scale  of  the  blue 
yellow-back,  and  might  be  the  freak  of  some 


64  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

individual  of  that  species.  I  stood  still,  and 
in  another  minute  the  singer  came  near  and 
sang  under  my  eye  ;  the  very  bird  I  had  been 
hoping  for,  —  a  cerulean  warbler  in  full 
dress ;  as  Dr.  Coues  says,  "  a  perfect  little 
beauty."  He  continued  in  sight,  feeding  in 
rather  low  branches,  —  an  exception  to  his 
usual  habit,  I  have  since  found,  —  and  sang 
many  times  over.  His  complaisance  was  a 
piece  of  high  good  fortune,  for  I  saw  no  sec- 
ond specimen.  The  strain  opens  with  two 
pairs  of  notes  on  the  same  pitch,  and  con- 
cludes with  an  upward  run  much  like  the 
blue  yellow-back's,  or  perhaps  midway  be- 
tween that  and  the  prairie  warbler's.  So 
I  heard  it,  I  mean  to  say.  But  everything 
depends  upon  the  ear.  Audubon  speaks  of 
it  as  "  extremely  sweet  and  mellow "  (the 
last  a  surprising  word),  while  Mr.  Eidgway 
is  quoted  as  saying  that  the  bird  possesses 
"  only  the  most  feeble  notes." 

The  woods  of  themselves  were  well  worth 
a  visit :  extremely  open,  with  broad  barren 
spaces ;  the  trees  tall,  largely  oak,  —  chestnut 
oak,  especially,  —  but  with  chestnut,  hickory, 
tupelo,  and  other  trees  intermingled.  Here, 
as   afterward  on   Walden's   Ridge,    I   was 


LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN.  55 

struck  with  the  almost  total  absence  of 
mosses,  and  the  dry,  stony  character  of  the 
soil,  —  a  novel  and  not  altogether  pleasing- 
feature  in  the  eyes  of  a  man  accustomed  to 
the  mountain  forests  of  New  England,  where 
mosses  cover  every  boulder,  stump,  and 
fallen  log,  while  the  feet  sink  into  sphagnum 
as  into  the  softest  of  carpets. 

Comfortable  lounging-places  continually 
invited  me  to  linger,  and  at  last  I  sat  down 
under  a  chestnut  oak,  with  a  big  broken- 
barked  tupelo  directly  before  me.  Over  the 
top  of  a  neighboring  boulder  a  lizard  leaned 
in  a  praying  attitude  and  gazed  upon  the 
intruder.  Once  in  a  while  some  loud-voiced 
tree-frog,  as  I  suppose,  uttered  a  grating  cry. 
A  blue-gray  gnatcatcher  was  complaining, 
—  snarling,  I  might  have  said ;  a  red-eye,  an 
indigo-bird,  a  field  sparrow,  and  a  Carolina 
wren  took  turns  in  singing;  and  a  sudden 
chat  threw  himself  into  the  air,  quite  un- 
announced, and,  with  ludicrous  teetering 
motions,  flew  into  the  tupelo  and  eyed  me 
saucily.  A  few  minutes  later,  a  single  ci- 
cada (seventeen-year  locust)  followed  him. 
With  my  glass  I  could  see  its  monstrous  red 
eyes  and  the  orange  edge  of  its  wing.     It 


56  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN. 

kept  silence;  but  wittout  a  moment's  ces- 
sation the  musical  hum  of  distant  millions 
like  it  filled  the  air,  —  a  noise  inconceivable. 

I  would  gladly  have  sat  longer,  as  I  would 
gladly  have  gone  much  farther  into  the 
woods,  for  I  had  seen  none  more  attractive ; 
but  a  rumbling  of  thunder,  a  rapid  blacken- 
ing of  the  sky,  and  a  recollection  of  the 
forenoon's  deluge  warned  me  to  turn  back. 
And  now,  for  the  first  time,  although  I  had 
been  living  within  sound  of  locusts  for  a 
week  or  more,  I  suddenly  came  to  trees  in 
which  they  were  congregated.  The  branches 
were  full  of  them.  Heard  thus  near,  the 
sound  was  no  longer  melodious,  but  harsh 
and  shrill. 

It  seemed  cruel  that  my  last  day  on  Look- 
out Mountain  should  be  so  broken  up,  and 
so  abruptly  and  unseasonably  concluded, 
but  so  the  Fates  willed  it.  My  retreat  be- 
came a  rout,  and  of  the  remainder  of  the 
road  I  remember  only  the  hurry  and  the 
warmth,  and  two  pleasant  things,  —  a  few 
wild  roses,  and  the  scent  of  a  grapevine  in 
bloom;  two  things  so  sweet  and  homelike 
that  they  coidd  be  caught  and  retained  by  a 
man  on  the  run. 


CHICKAMAUGA. 

The  field  of  Cliickamauga  —  a  worthily 
resounding  name  for  one  of  the  great  battle- 
fields of  the  world  —  lies  a  few  miles  south 
of  the  Tennessee  and  Georgia  boundary,  and 
is  distant  about  an  hour's  ride  by  rail  from 
Chattanooga.  A  single  morning  train  out- 
ward, and  a  single  evening  train  inward, 
made  an  all-day  excursion  necessary,  and  the 
time  proved  to  be  none  too  long.  Unhap- 
pily, as  I  then  thought,  the  sun  was  impla- 
cable, with  the  mercury  in  the  nineties, 
though  it  was  only  the  3d  of  May ;  and  as  I 
was  on  foot,  and  the  national  reservation 
covers  nine  or  ten  square  miles,  I  saw  hardly 
more  than  a  corner  of  the  field.  This  would 
have  been  a  more  serious  disappointment 
had  my  errand  been  of  a  topographical  or 
historical  nature.  As  the  case  was,  being 
only  a  sentimental  pilgrim,  I  ought  perhaps 
to  have  welcomed  the  burning  heat  as  a  cir- 
cumstance all  in  my  favor  ;  suiting  the  spirit 
of  the  place,  and  constraining  me  to  a  need- 


58  CHICKAMAUGA. 

f  ul  moderation.  When  a  man  goes  in  search 
of  a  mood,  he  must  go  neither  too  fast  nor 
too  far.  As  the  Scripture  saith,  "  Bodily- 
exercise  profiteth  little."  So  much  may 
readily  be  confessed  now  ;  for  wisdom  comes 
with  reflection,  and  it  is  no  great  matter  to 
bear  a  last  year's  toothache. 

From  the  railway  station  I  followed,  at  a 
venture,  a  road  that  soon  brought  me  to  a 
comfortable,  homelike  house,  with  fine  shade 
trees  and  an  orchard.  This  was  the  Dyer 
estate,  —  so  a  tablet  informed  all  comers. 
Here,  in  September,  1863,  lived  John  Dyer, 
who  suddenly  found  his  few  peaceful  acres 
surrounded  and  overrun  by  a  hundred  thou- 
sand armed  men,  and  himself  drafted  into 
service  —  if  he  needed  drafting  —  as  guide 
to  the  Confederate  commander.  Since  then 
strange  things  had  happened  to  the  little 
farmhouse,  which  now  was  nothing  less  than 
a  sort  of  government  headquarters,  as  I 
rightly  inferred  from  the  general  aspect  of 
things  round  about,  and  the  American  flag 
flying  above  the  roof.  I  passed  the  place 
without  entering,  halting  only  to  smile  at  the 
antics  of  a  white  -  breasted  nuthatch,  —  my 
first  Tennessee  specimen,  —  which  was  hop- 


CHICKAMAUGA.  59 

ping  awkwardly  about  the  yard.  It  was  a 
question  of  something  to  eat,  I  suppose,  or 
perhaps  of  a  feather  for  the  family  nest,  and 
precedents  and  appearances  went  for  nothing. 
Two  or  three  minutes  afterward  I  came  face 
to  face  with  another  apparition,  a  horseman 
as  graceful  and  dignified,  not  to  say  majestic, 
as  the  nuthatch  had  been  lumbering  and  un- 
gainly ;  a  man  in  civilian's  dress,  but  visibly 
a  soldier,  with  a  pose  and  carriage  that  made 
shoulder-straps  superfluous ;  a  man  to  look 
at ;  every  inch  a  major-general,  at  the  very 
least ;  of  whom,  nevertheless,  —  the  heat  or 
something  else  giving  me  courage,  —  I  ven- 
tured to  inquire,  from  under  my  umbrella,  if 
there  were  any  way  of  seeing  some  of  the 
more  interesting  portions  of  the  battlefield 
without  too  much  exposure  to  the  sun.  He 
showed  a  little  surprise  (military  gentlemen 
always  do,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  when 
strangers  address  them),  but  recovered  him- 
self, and  answered  almost  with  affability. 
Yes,  he  said,  if  I  would  take  the  first  turn  to 
the  left,  I  should  pass  the  spot  over  which 
Longstreet  made  the  charge  that  decided  the 
fate  of  the  contest,  and  as  he  spoke  he  pointed 
out  the  field,  which  appeared  to  be  part  of 


60  CHICKAMAUGA. 

tlie  Dyer  farm ;  then  I  should  presently 
come  within  sight  of  the  Kelly  house,  about 
which  the  fighting  was  of  the  hottest ;  and 
from  there  I  should  do  well  to  go  to  the  Snod- 
grass  Hill  tower  and  the  Snodgrass  house. 
To  do  as  much  as  that  would  'require  little 
walking,  and  at  the  same  time  I  should  have 
seen  a  good  share  of  what  was  best  worth 
a  visitor's  notice.  I  thanked  him,  and  fol- 
lowed his  advice. 

The  left-hand  road,  of  which  my  informant 
had  spoken,  ran  between  the  forest  —  mostly 
of  tall  oaks  and  long-leaved  pines  —  and  the 
grassy  Dyer  field.  Here  it  was  possible  to 
keep  in  the  shade,  and  life  was  compara- 
tively easy ;  so  that  I  felt  no  stirrings  of 
envious  desire  when  two  gentlemen,  whom 
I  recognized  as  having  been  among  my  fel- 
low-passengers from  Chattanooga,  came  up 
behind  me  in  a  carriage  with  a  pair  of  horses 
and  a  driver.  As  they  overtook  me,  and 
while  I  was  wondering  where  they  could 
have  procured  so  luxurious  a  turnout,  since 
I  had  discovered  no  sign  of  a  public  con- 
veyance or  a  livery  stable,  the  driver  reined 
in  his  horses,  and  the  older  of  the  gentlemen 
put  out  his  head  to  ask,  "  Were  you  in  the 


CmCKAMAUGA.  61 

battle,  sir  ?  "  I  answered  in  tlie  negative ; 
and  lie  added,  half  apologetically,  tliat  lie  and 
his  companion  wished  to  get  as  many  points 
as  possible  about  the  field.  In  the  kindness 
of  my  heart,  I  told  him  that  I  was  a  stranger, 
like  himself,  but  that  the  gentleman  yonder, 
on  horseback,  seemed  to  be  well  acquainted 
with  the  place,  and  would  no  doubt  answer 
all  inquiries.  With  a  queer  look  in  his  face, 
and  some  remark  that  I  failed  to  catch,  my 
interlocutor  dropped  back  into  his  seat,  and 
the  carriage  drove  on.  It  was  only  after- 
ward that  I  learned  —  on  meeting  him  again 
—  that  he  was  no  other  than  General  Boyn- 
ton,  the  man  who  is  at  the  head  of  all  things 
pertaining  to  Chickamauga  and  its  history. 

In  the  open  field  several  Bachman  finches 
were  singing,  while  the  woods  were  noisier, 
but  less  musical,  with  Maryland  yellow- 
throats,  black-poll  warblers,  tufted  titmice, 
and  two  sorts  of  vireos.  Sprinkled  over  the 
ground  were  the  lovely  spring  beauty  and 
the  violet  wood  sorrel,  with  pentstemon, 
houstonia,  and  a  cheerful  pink  phlox.  Here 
I  soon  heard  a  second  nuthatch,  and  fell  into 
a  kind  of  fever  about  its  notes,  which  were 
clearer,  less  nasal,  than  those  of  our  New 


62  CHICKJJIAUGA, 

England  birds,  it  seemed  to  me,  and  differ- 
ently phrased.  Such  peculiarities  might  in- 
dicate a  local  race,  I  said  to  myself,  with 
that  predisposition  to  surprise  which  is  one 
of  the  chief  compensations  of  life  away  from 
home.  As  I  went  on,  a  wood  pewee  and  a 
field  sparrow  began  singing,  —  two  birds 
whose  voices  might  have  been  tuned  on  pur- 
pose for  such  a  place.  Of  the  petulant, 
snappish  cry  of  an  Acadian  flycatcher  not 
quite  the  same  could  be  said.  One  of  the 
"unreconstructed,"  I  was  tempted  to  call 
him. 

The  Kelly  house,  on  the  way  to  which 
through  the  woods  my  Yankee  eyes  were 
delighted  with  the  sight  of  loose  patches  of 
rue  anemones,  was  duly  marked  with  a  tab- 
let, and  proved  to  be  a  cabin  of  the  most 
primitive  type,  standing  in  the  usual  bit  of 
fenced  land  (the  smallness  of  the  houseyards, 
as  contrasted  with  the  miles  of  open  country 
round  about,  is  a  noticeable  feature  of  South- 
ern landscapes),  with  a  corn-house  near  by, 
and  a  tumble-down  barn  across  the  way. 
For  some  time  I  sat  beside  the  road,  under 
an  oak ;  then,  seeing  two  women,  older  and 
younger,  inside  the  house,  I  asked  leave  to 


CHICKAMAUGA.  63 

enter,  the  doors  being  open,  and  was  made 
welcome  with  apparent  heartiness.  The 
elderly  woman  soon  confided  to  me  that  she 
was  seventy-six  years  old,  —  a  marvelous 
figure  she  seemed  to  consider  it ;  and  when 
I  tried  to  say  something  about  her  compar- 
ative youthfulness,  and  the  much  greater 
age  of  some  ladies  of  my  acquaintance  (no 
names  being  mentioned,  of  course),  she 
would  only  repeat  that  she  was  awful  old, 
and  should  n't  live  much  longer.  She  meant 
to  improve  the  time,  however,  —  and  the 
unusual  fortune  of  a  visitor,  —  and  fairly 
ran  over  with  talk.  She  did  n't  belong  about 
here.  Oh  no  ;  she  came  from  "  'way  up  in 
Tennessee,  a  hundred  and  sixty  miles ! " 
"  'Pears  like  I  'm  a  long  way  from  home," 
she  said,  —  "a  hundred  and  sixty  miles  !  " 
Again  I  sought  to  comfort  her.  That  was  n't 
so  very  far.  What  did  she  think  of  me, 
who  had  come  all  the  way  from  Massachu- 
setts ?  She  threw  up  her  hands,  and  ejacu- 
lated, "  Oh,  Lor' !  "  with  a  fervor  to  which 
a  regiment  of  exclamation  points  would 
scarcely  do  justice.  Yet  she  had  but  a 
vague  idea  of  where  Massachusetts  was,  I 
fancy ;  for  pretty  soon  she  asked,  "  Where 


64  CHICEAMAUGA. 

did  you  say  you  was  from  ?  Pennsylvany  ?  " 
And  when  I  said,  "  Oh  no,  Massachusetts, 
twice  as  far  as  that,"  she  could  only  repeat, 
"  Oh,  Lor' !  "  Her  grandson  was  at  work 
in  the  park,  and  she  had  come  down  to  live 
with  him  and  his  wife.  But  she  should  n't 
live  long. 

The  wonder  of  this  new  world  was  still 
strong  upon  her.  "  Them  moniment  things 
they  've  put  up,"  she  said,  "  have  you  seen 
'em  ?  Men  cut  in  a  rock !  —  three  of  'em  ? 
Have  you  seen  'em  ?  Ain't  they  a  sight  to 
see  ?  "  She  referred  to  the  granite  monu- 
ments of  the  regidars,  on  which  are  life-size 
figures  in  high  relief.  And  had  I  seen  the 
tower  on  the  hill,  she  proceeded  to  ask,  —  an 
open  iron  structure,  —  and  what  did  I  think 
of  that  f  She  would  n't  go  up  in  it  for  a 
bushel  of  money.  "  Oh  yes,  you  would,"  I 
told  her.  "  You  would  like  it,  I  'm  sure." 
But  she  stuck  to  her  story.  She  wouldn't 
do  it  for  a  bushel  of  money.  She  should 
be  dizzy ;  and  she  threw  up  her  hands,  lit- 
erally, at  the  very  thought,  while  her  grand- 
daughter sat  and  smiled  at  my  waste  of 
breath.  I  asked  if  many  visitors  came  here. 
"  Oh,   Lor',  yes ! "  the  old  lady  answered. 


CHICKAMAUGA.  65 

"  More  'n  two  dozen  have  been  liere  from 
'way  up  in  Chicago." 

The  mention  of  visitors  led  the  younger 
woman  to  produce  a  box  of  relics,  and  I 
paid  her  a  dime  for  three  minie-balls.  "  I 
always  get  a  nickel,"  she  said,  when  I  in- 
quired the  price  ;  but  when  I  selected  two, 
and  handed  her  a  ten-cent  piece,  she  insisted 
upon  my  taking  another.  Wholesale  cus- 
tomers deserved  handsome  treatment.  She 
had  picked  up  such  things  herself  before 
now,  but  her  husband  found  most  of  them 
while  grubbing  in  the  woods. 

The  cabin  was  a  one-room  affair,  of  a  sort 
common  in  that  country  ("  cracker-boxes," 
one  might  call  them,  if  punning  were  not  so 
frowned  upon),  with  a  big  fireplace,  two 
opposite  doors,  two  beds  in  diagonally  oppo- 
site corners,  and,  I  think,  no  window.  Here 
was  domestic  life  in  something  like  its  pris- 
tine simplicity,  a  philosopher  might  have 
said :  the  house  still  subordinate  to  the  man, 
and  the  housekeeper  not  yet  a  slave  to  fur- 
niture and  bric-a-brac.  But  even  a  philoso- 
pher would  perhaps  have  tolerated  a  second 
room  and  a  light  of  glass.  As  for  myself, 
I  remembered  that  I  used  to  read  of  "  poor 
white  trash"  in  anti-slavery  novels. 


bb  CHICKAMAUGA. 

By  this  time  the  sun  had  so  doubled  its 
fury  that  I  would  not  cross  the  bare  Kelly 
field,  and  therefore  did  not  go  down  to  look  at 
the  "  men  cut  in  a  rock ;  "  but  after  visiting 
a  shell  pyramid  which  marks  the  spot  where 
Colonel  King  fell,  —  and  near  which  I  saw 
my  first  Tennessee  flicker,  —  I  turned  back 
toward  Snodgrass  Hill,  keeping  to  the  woods 
as  jealously  as  any  soldier  can  have  done  on 
the  days  of  the  battle.  At  the  foot  of  the 
hill  was  a  well,  with  a  rude  bucket  and  a 
rope  to  draw  with.  Here  I  drank,  —  having 
to  stand  in  the  sun,  I  remember,  —  and 
then  sat  down  in  the  shelter  of  large  trees 
near  by,  with  guideboards  and  index-fingers 
all  about  me,  while  a  Bachman  finch,  who 
occupied  a  small  brush-heap  just  beyond  the 
well  (7ie  had  no  fear  of  sunshine),  enter- 
tained me  with  music.  He  was  a  master. 
I  had  never  heard  his  equal  of  his  own  kind, 
and  seldom  a  bird  of  any  kind,  that  seemed 
so  much  at  home  with  his  instrument.  He 
sang  "  like  half  a  dozen  birds,"  to  quote  my 
own  pencil ;  now  giving  out  a  brief  and  sim- 
ple strain,  now  running  into  protracted  and 
intricate  warbles  ;  and  all  with  the  most  be- 
witching ardor  and  sweetness,  and  without 


CHICKAMAUGA.  61 

the  slightest  suggestion  of  attempting  to 
make  a  show.  A  field  sparrow  sang  from 
the  border  of  the  grass  land  at  the  same 
moment.  I  wished  he  could  have  refrained. 
Nothing  shall  induce  me  to  say  a  word 
against  him ;  but  there  are  times  when  one 
would  rather  be  spared  even  the  opportunity 
for  a  comparison. 

As  I  went  up  the  hill  under  the  tall  trees, 
largely  yellow  pines,  a  crested  flycatcher 
stood  at  the  tip  of  one  of  the  tallest  of  them, 
screaming  like  a  bird  of  war ;  and  further 
on  was  a  red-cockaded  woodpecker,  flitting 
restlessly  from  trunk  to  trunk,  its  flight 
marked  with  a  musical  woodpeckerish  wing- 
beat, —  like  the  downy's  purr,  but  louder. 
I  had  never  seen  the  bird  before  except  in 
the  pine-lands  of  Florida,  nor  did  I  see  it 
afterward  except  on  this  same  hill,  at  a  sec- 
ond visit.  It  is  a  congener  of  the  downy 
and  the  hairy,  ranking  between  them  in  size, 
and  by  way  of  distinction  wears  a  big  white 
patch,  an  ear-muff,  one  might  say,  on  the 
side  of  its  head.  Its  habitat  is  strictly 
southern,  so  that  its  name,  Dryohates  hore- 
alls,  though  easily  rememberable,  seems  but 
moderately  felicitous. 


68  CHICKAMAUGA. 

Perhaps  tlie  most  enjoyable  part  of  the 
day  —  the  most  comfortable,  certainly,  but 
the  words  are  not  synonymous  —  was  a  two- 
hour  siesta  on  the  Snodgrass  Hill  tower, 
above  the  tops  of  the  highest  trees.  The 
only  two  landmarks  of  which  I  knew  the 
names  were  Missionary  Ridge  and  Lookout 
Mountain;  the  latter  running  back  for 
many  miles  into  Georgia,  like  a  long  wooded 
plateau,  till  it  rises  into  High  Point  at  its 
southern  end,  and  breaks  off  precipitously. 

Farther  to  the  south  were  low  hills  fol- 
lowed by  a  long  mountain  of  beautiful  shape, 
—  Pigeon  Mountain,  I  heard  it  called, — 
with  elevations  at  each  end  and  in  the  mid- 
dle. And  so  my  eye  made  the  round  of  the 
horizon,  hill  after  hill  in  picturesque  confu- 
sion, till  it  returned  to  Missionary  Ridge, 
with  Walden's  Ridge  rising  beyond,  and 
Lookout  Point  on  the  left :  a  charming  pros- 
pect, especially  for  its  atmosphere  and  color. 
The  hard  woods,  with  dark  pines  everywhere 
among  them  to  set  them  off,  were  just  com- 
ing into  leaf,  with  all  those  numberless, 
nameless,  delicate  shades  of  green  that  make 
the  glory  of  the  springtime.  The  open 
fields  were  not  yet  clear  green,  —  if  they 


CHICKAMAUGA.  69 

ever  would  be,  —  but  green  and  brown  inter- 
mixed, wliile  the  cultivated  hillsides,  espe- 
cially on  Missionary  Eidge,  were  of  a  deep 
rich  reddish-brown.  The  air  was  full  of 
beautifying  haze,  and  cumulus  clouds  in  the 
south  and  west  threw  motionless  shadows 
upon  the  mountain  woods. 

Around  me,  in  different  parts  of  the 
battlefield,  were  eight  or  ten  houses  and 
cabins,  the  nearest  of  them,  almost  at  my 
feet,  being  the  Snodgrass  house,  famous  as 
the  headquarters  of  General  Thomas,  the 
hero  of  the  fight,  — the  "Rock  of  Chicka- 
mauga,"  —  who  saved  the  Union  army  after 
the  field  was  lost.  All  was  peaceful  enough 
there  now,  with  the  lines  full  of  the  week's 
washing,  which  a  woman  under  a  volumi- 
nous sunbonnet  was  at  that  moment  taking 
in  (in  that  sun  things  would  dry  almost  be- 
fore the  clothes-pins  could  be  put  on  them, 
I  thought),  while  a  red-gowned  child,  and  a 
hen  with  a  brood  of  young  chickens,  kept 
close  about  her  feet.  Her  husband,  like  the 
occupant  of  the  Kelly  house,  was  no  doubt 
one  of  the  government  laborers,  who  to-day 
were  burning  refuse  in  the  woods,  —  invisi- 
ble fires,  from  each  of  which  a  thin  cloud 


70  CHICKAMAUGA. 

of  blue  smoke  rose  among  tlie  trees.  The 
Dyer  house,  in  a  direction  nearly  opposite 
the  Snodgrass  house,  stood  broadly  in  the 
open,  with  an  orchard  behind  it,  and  dark 
savins  posted  here  and  there  over  the  outly- 
ing pasture. 

Even  at  noonday  the  air  was  full  of 
music :  first  an  incessant  tinkle  of  cow-bells 
rising  from  all  sides,  wondrously  sweet  and 
soothing ;  then  a  continuous,  far-away  hum, 
like  a  sawmill  just  audible  in  the  extreme 
distance,  or  the  vibration  of  innumerable 
wires,  miles  remote,  perhaps,  —  a  noise  which 
I  knew  neither  how  to  describe  nor  how  to 
guess  the  origin  of,  the  work  of  seventeen- 
year  locusts,  I  afterward  learned ;  and  then, 
sung  to  this  invariable  instrumental  accom- 
paniment,—  this  natural  pedal  point,  if  I 
may  call  it  so,  —  the  songs  of  birds. 

The  singers  were  of  a  quiet  and  unpreten- 
tious sort,  as  befitted  the  hour:  a  summer 
tanager ;  a  red-eyed  vireo ;  a  tufted  titmouse ; 
a  Maryland  yellow-throat,  who  cried,  "  What 
a  pity !  What  a  pity !  What  a  pity ! "  but 
not  as  if  he  felt  in  the  least  distressed  about 
it;  a  yellow-throated  vireo,  full-voiced  and 
passionless ;  a  field  sparrow,  pretty  far  off ; 


CHICKAMAUGA.  71 

a  wood  pewee ;  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo ;  a 
quail;  a  Carolina  wren,  with  his  "Cherry, 
cherry,  cherry ! "  and  a  Carolina  chickadee, 
—  a  modest  woodland  chorus,  interrupted 
now  by  the  jubilant  cackling  of  a  hen  at  the 
Snodgrass  house  (if  a  man's  daily  achieve- 
ments only  gave  him  equal  satisfaction !) 
and  now  by  the  scream  of  a  crested  fly- 
catcher. 

The  most  interesting  member  of  the  choir, 
though  one  of  the  poorest  of  them  all  as  a 
singer,  is  not  included  in  the  foregoing  enu- 
meration. While  I  lay  dreaming  on  the 
iron  floor  of  the  tower,  enjoying  the  breeze, 
the  landscape,  the  music,  and,  more  than  all, 
the  place,  I  was  suddenly  brought  wide 
awake  by  a  hoarse  drawling  note  out  of  the 
upper  branches  of  a  tall  oak  a  little  below 
my  level.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  bird, 
having  run  down  to  a  lower  story  of  the 
tower  for  that  purpose.  Then  he  disap- 
peared, but  after  a  while,  from  the  same 
tree,  he  called  again ;  and  again  I  saw  him, 
but  not  well.  Another  long  absence,  and 
once  more,  still  in  the  same  tree,  he  sang 
and  showed  himself:  a  blue-winged  yellow 
warbler,  an  exquisite  bunch  of  feathers,  but 


72  CHICKAMAUGA. 

witli  a  song  of  the  oddest  and  meanest, — 
two  syllables,  the  first  a  mere  nothing,  and 
the  second  a  husky  drawl,  in  a  voice  like 
the  blue  golden-wing's.  Insignificant  and 
almost  contemptible  as  it  was,  a  shabby  ex- 
pression of  connubial  felicity,  to  say  the 
least,  I  counted  myseK  happy  to  have  heard 
it,  for  novelty  covers  a  multitude  of  sins. 

The  yellow-throated  warblers  were  hardly 
less  interesting  than  the  blue-wing,  though 
they  threw  me  into  less  excitement.  For 
a  long  time  I  heard  them  without  heeding 
them.  From  the  day  of  my  arrival  in  Chat- 
tanooga I  had  been  surrounded  by  indigo- 
birds  in  numbers  beyond  anything  that  a 
New  England  mind  ever  dreams  of.  As  a 
matter  of  course  they  were  singing  here  on 
Snodgrass  Hill,  or  so  I  thought.  But  by 
and  by,  as  the  lazy  notes  were  once  more 
repeated,  there  came  over  me  a  sudden  sense 
of  difference.  "  Was  that  an  indigo-bird?" 
I  said  to  myself.  "  Was  n't  it  a  yellow- 
throated  warbler?"  I  was  sitting  among 
the  tops  of  the  pine-trees;  the  birds  had 
been  droning  almost  in  my  very  ears,  and 
without  a  thought  I  had  listened  to  them  as 
indigo-birds.     It  confirmed  what  I  had  writ- 


CHICKAMAUGA.  73 

ten  in  Florida,  that  the  two  songs  are  much 
alike ;  but  it  was  a  sharp  lesson  in  caution. 
When  a  prudent  man  finds  himself  thus  be- 
fooled, he  begins  to  wonder  how  it  may  be 
with  the  remainder  of  that  precious  body  of 
notions,  inherited  and  acquired,  to  which,  in 
all  but  his  least  complacent  moods,  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  give  the  name  of  know- 
ledge. 

Here  was  a  lesson,  also,  in  the  close  rela- 
tion that  everywhere  subsists  between  the 
distribution  of  plants  and  the  distribution 
of  animals.  These  were  the  only  yellow 
pines  noticed  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chat- 
tanooga ;  and  in  them,  and  nowhere  else,  I 
found  two  birds  of  the  Southern  pine-bar- 
rens, the  red-cockaded  woodpecker  and  the 
yellow-throated  warbler. 

At  the  base  of  the  tower,  when  I  finally 
descended,  I  paused  a  moment  to  look  at 
a  cluster  of  graves,  eight  or  ten  in  all,  un- 
marked save  by  a  flagging  of  small  stones ; 
one  of  those  family  or  neighborhood  burying- 
grounds,  the  occupants  of  which  —  happier 
than  most  of  us,  who  must  lie  in  crowded 
cities  of  the  dead  —  repose  in  decent  pri- 
vacy,   surrounded   by   their   own,   with   no 


74  CHICKAMAUGA. 

ugly  staring  white  slabs  to  publish  their  im- 
memorable  names  to  every  passer-by. 

From  the  hill  it  was  but  a  few  steps  to 
the  Snodgrass  house,  where  a  woman  stood 
in  the  yard  with  a  young  girl,  and  answered 
all  my  inquiries  with  cheerful  and  easy  po- 
liteness. None  of  the  Snodgrass  family 
now  occupied  the  house,  she  said,  though  one 
of  the  daughters  still  lived  just  outside  the 
reservation.  The  woman  had  heard  her  de- 
scribe the  terrible  scenes  on  the  days  of  the 
battle.  The  operating-table  stood  under  this 
tree,  and  just  there  was  a  trench  into  which 
the  amputated  limbs  were  thrown.  Yonder 
field,  now  grassy,  was  then  planted  with 
corn;  and  when  the  Federal  troops  were 
driven  through  it,  they  trod  upon  their  own 
wounded,  who  begged  piteously  for  water 
and  assistance.  A  large  tree  in  front  of  the 
house  was  famous,  the  woman  said ;  and 
certainly  it  was  well  hacked.  A  picture  of 
it  had  been  in  "The  Century."  General 
Thomas  was  said  to  have  rested  under  it ; 
but  an  officer  who  had  been  there  not  long 
before  to  set  up  a  granite  monument  near 
the  gate  told  her  that  General  Thomas 
didn't  rest  under  that  tree,  nor  anywhere 


CHICKAMAUGA.  75 

else.  Two  things  he  did,  past  all  dispute : 
he  saved  the  Federal  army  from  destruc- 
tion and  made  the  Snodgrass  farmhouse  an 
American  shrine. 

When  our  talk  was  ended  I  returned  to 
the  hill,  and  thence  sauntered  through  the 
woods  —  the  yellow-throated  warblers  sing- 
ing all  about  me  in  the  pine-tops  —  down  to 
the  vicinity  of  the  railroad.  Here,  finding 
myself  in  the  sun  again,  I  made  toward  a 
shop  near  the  station,  —  shop  and  post-office 
in  one,  —  where  fortunately  there  were  such 
edibles,  semi-edibles,  as  are  generally  to  be 
looked  for  in  country  groceries.  Meanwhile 
there  came  on  a  Tennessee  thunder  shower, 
lightning  of  the  closest  and  rain  by  the 
bucketful ;  and,  driven  before  it,  an  Indiana 
soldier  made  his  appearance,  a  wiry  little 
man  of  fifty  or  more.  He  had  been  spend- 
ing the  day  on  the  field,  he  told  me.  In 
one  hand  he  carried  a  battered  and  rusty 
cartridge-box,  and  out  of  his  pockets  he  pro- 
duced and  laid  on  the  counter  a  collection  of 
bullets.  His  were  relics  of  the  right  stamp, 
—  found,  not  purchased,  —  and  not  without 
a  little  shamefacedness  I  showed  him  my 
three  minie-baUs.     "Oh,  you  have  got  all 


76  CHICKAMAUGA, 

Federal  bullets,"  he  said  ;  and  on  my  asking 
how  he  could  tell  that,  he  placed  a  Confed- 
erate ball  beside  them,  and  pointed  out  a 
difference  in  shape.  He  was  a  cheery,  com- 
municative body,  good-humored  but  not 
jocose,  excellent  company  in  such  an  hour, 
though  he  had  small  fancy  for  the  lightning, 
it  seemed  to  me.  Perhaps  he  had  been 
under  fire  so  often  as  to  have  lost  all  relish 
for  excitement  of  that  kind.  He  was  not  at 
the  battle  of  Chickamauga,  he  said,  but  at 
Vicksburg ;  and  he  gave  me  a  vivid  descrip- 
tion of  his  work  in  the  trenches,  as  well  as 
of  the  surrender,  and  the  happiness  of  the 
half-starved  defenders  of  the  city,  who  were 
at  once  fed  by  their  captors. 

All  his  talk  showed  a  lively  sense  of  the 
horrors  of  war.  He  had  seen  enough  of 
fighting,  he  confessed ;  but  he  could  n't  keep 
away  from  a  battlefield,  if  he  came  anywhere 
near  one.  He  had  been  to  the  national 
cemetery  in  Chattanooga,  and  agreed  with 
me  that  it  was  a  beautiful  place  ;  but  he  had 
heard  that  Southern  soldiers  were  lying  in 
unmarked  graves  just  outside  the  wall  (a 
piece  of  misinformation,  I  have  no  doubt), 
and  he  did  n't  think  it  right  or  decent  for 


CHICKAMAUGA.  77 

the  government  to  discriminate  in  that  way. 
The  Confederates  were  just  as  sincere  as  the 
Union  men  ;  and  anyhow,  vengeance  ought 
not  to  follow  a  man  after  he  was  dead. 
Evidently  he  had  fought  against  an  army 
and  a  cause,  not  against  individuals. 

When  the  rain  was  over,  or  substantially 
so,  I  proposed  to  improve  an  hour  of  cool- 
ness and  freshness  by  paying  another  visit 
to  headquarters  ;  but  my  Indiana  veteran 
was  not  to  be  enticed  out  of  shelter.  It  was 
still  rather  wet,  he  thought.  "  I  'm  pretty 
careful  of  my  body,"  he  added,  by  way  of 
settling  the  matter.  It  had  been  through 
so  much,  I  suppose,  that  he  esteemed  it 
precious. 

I  set  out  alone,  therefore,  and  this  time 
went  into  the  Dyer  house,  after  drinking 
from  a  covered  spring  across  the  way.  But 
there  was  little  to  see  inside,  and  the  three 
or  four  officers  and  clerks  were  occupied 
with  maps  and  charts,  —  courteous,  no  doubt, 
but  with  official  and  counting-house  courtesy ; 
men  of  whom  you  could  well  enough  ask  a 
definite  question,  but  with  whom  it  would  be 
impossible  to  drift  into  random  talk.  There 
was  far  better  company  outside.     Even  while 


78  CHICKAMAUGA. 

I  stood  in  the  back  door,  on  my  way  thither, 
there  suddenly  flashed  upon  me  from  a  tree- 
top  by  the  fence  a  splendid  Baltimore  oriole. 
He  fairly  "gave  me  a  start,"  and  I  broke 
out  to  the  young  fellow  beside  me,  "  Why, 
there  's  a  Baltimore  oriole !  "  The  exclama- 
tion was  thrown  away,  but  I  did  not  mind. 

It  was  the  birds'  own  hour,  —  late  after- 
noon, with  sunshine  after  rain.  The  or- 
chard and  shade-trees  were  alive  with  wings, 
and  the  air  was  loud.  How  brilliant  a  com- 
pany it  was  a  list  of  names  will  show;  a 
mocking-bird,  a  thrasher,  several  catbirds,  a 
pair  of  bluebirds,  a  pair  of  orchard  orioles, 
a  summer  tanager,  a  wood  pewee,  and  a 
flicker,  with  goldfinches  and  indigo-birds, 
and  behind  the  orchard  a  Bachman  finch. 
For  bright  colors  and  fine  voices  that  was  a 
chorus  hard  to  beat.  As  for  the  Baltimore 
oriole,  the  brightest  bird  of  the  lot,  and  the 
only  one  of  his  race  that  I  found  in  all  that 
country,  he  looked  most  uncommonly  at 
home  —  to  me  —  in  the  John  Dyer  trees. 
I  was  never  gladder  to  see  him. 

A  strange  fate  this  that  had  befallen  these 
Georgia  farms,  owned  once  by  Dyer,  Snod- 
grass,  Kelly,  Brotherton,  and  the  rest :  the 


CHICKAMAUGA.  79 

plainest  and  most  ordinary  of  country  houses, 
in  which  lived  the  plainest  of  country  people, 
with  no  dream  of  fame,  or  of  much  else,  per- 
haps, beyond  the  day's  work  and  the  day's 
ration.  Then  comes  Bragg  retreating  before 
Kosecrans,  who  is  manoeuvring  him  out  of 
Tennessee.  Here  the  Confederate  leader 
turns  upon  his  pursuers.  Here  he  —  or  ra- 
ther, one  of  his  subordinates  —  wins  a  great 
victory,  which  nevertheless,  as  a  Southern 
historian  says,  "  sealed  the  fate  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy."  Now  the  farmers 
are  gone,  but  their  names  remain ;  and  as 
long  as  the  national  government  endures, 
pilgrims  from  far  and  near  will  come  to 
walk  over  the  historic  acres.  "  This  is  the 
Dyer  house,"  they  will  say,  "  and  this  is 
the  Kelly  house,  and  this  is  the  Snodgrass 
house."  So  Fame  catches  up  a  chance 
favorite,  and  consigns  the  rest  to  oblivion. 

My  jfirst  visit  to  Chickamauga  left  so 
pleasant  a  taste  that  only  two  days  afterward 
I  repeated  it.  In  particular  I  remembered 
my  midday  rest  among  the  treetops,  and  my 
glimpse  of  the  blue-winged  warbler.  It 
would  be  worth  a  day  of  my  vacation  to  idle 
away  another  noon  so  agreeably,  and  hear 


80  CmCEAMAUGA. 

again  that  ridiculous  makesliift  of  a  bird- 
song.  Field  ornithology  has  this  for  one 
of  its  distinguishing  advantages,  that  every 
excursion  leaves  something  for  another  to 
verify  or  finish. 

This  time  I  went  straight  to  Snodgrass 
Hill  through  the  woods,  and  was  barely  on 
the  steps  of  the  tower  before  I  heard  the 
blue- wing.  As  well  as  I  could  judge,  the 
voice  came  from  the  same  oak  that  the  bird 
had  occupied  two  days  before.  I  was  in 
luck,  I  thought ;  but  the  miserly  fellow 
vouchsafed  not  another  note,  and  I  could 
not  spend  the  forenoon  hours  in  waiting  for 
him.  Two  red-cockaded  woodpeckers  were 
playing  among  the  trees,  where,  like  the  blue- 
wing  and  the  yellow-throats,  they  were  doubt- 
less established  in  summer  quarters.  "  Sap- 
suckers,"  one  of  the  workmen  called  them. 
They  were  common,  he  said,  but  likely 
enough  he  failed  to  discriminate  between 
them  and  their  two  black-and-white  relatives. 
Eed-headed  woodpeckers  were  not  common 
here  (I  had  seen  a  single  bird,  displaying  its 
colors  from  a  lofty  dead  pine),  but  were 
abundant  and  very  destructive,  so  my 
informant  declared,  on  Lookout  Mountain. 


CHICKAMAUGA.  81 

Turkeys  were  still  numerous  on  tlie  moun- 
tain, and  only  the  Sunday  before  one  liad 
been  seen  within  the  park  limits. 

The  Bachman  finch  was  again  in  tune  at 
his  brush-heap  near  the  well,  and  between 
the  music  and  a  shady  seat  I  was  in  no  haste 
to  go  further.  Finally,  I  experimented  to 
see  how  near  the  fellow  would  let  me  ap- 
proach, taking  time  enough  not  to  startle 
him  in  the  process.  It  was  wonderful  how 
he  held  his  ground.  The  "  Kock  of  Chicka- 
mauga  "  himseK  could  not  have  been  more 
obstinate.  I  had  almost  to  tread  on  him  be- 
fore he  would  fly.  He  was  a  great  singer, 
a  genius,  and  a  poet, 

' '  witli  modest  looks, 
And  clad  in  homely  russet  brown," 

and  withal  a  lover  of  the  sun,  —  a  bird  never 
to  be  forgotten.  I  wish  I  knew  how  to 
praise  him. 

To-day,  as  on  my  previous  visit,  I  re- 
marked a  surprising  scarcity  of  migrants. 
With  the  exception  of  black-poll  warblers, 
I  am  not  certain  that  I  saw  any,  though  I 
went  nowhere  else  without  finding  them  in 
good  variety.  Had  my  imagination  been 
equal  to  such  a  stretch,  I  might  have  sus- 


82  CHICEAMAUGA. 

pected  that  Northern  birds  did  not  feel  at 
home  on  the  scene  of  a  great  Southern  vic- 
tory. Here  and  there  a  nuthatch  called, 
and  again  I  seemed  to  perceive  a  decided 
strangeness  in  the  voice.  From  the  tip  of  a 
fruit-tree  in  the  Kelly  yard  a  thrasher  or  a 
mocker  was  singing  like  one  possessed.  It 
was  impossible  to  be  sure  which  it  was,  and 
the  uncertainty  pleased  me  so  much,  as  a 
testimony  to  the  thrasher's  musical  powers, 
that  I  would  not  go  round  the  house  in  the 
sun  to  get  a  nearer  observation.  Instead,  I 
went  down  to  look  at  the  monuments  of  the 
regulars,  with  their  "  men  cut  in  a  rock." 
Thence  I  returned  to  Snodgrass  Hill  for  my 
noonday  rest,  stopping  once  more  at  the 
well,  of  course,  and  reading  again  some  of 
the  placards,  the  number  of  which  just  here 
bore  impressive  witness  to  the  fierceness  of 
the  battle  at  this  point.  One  inscription  I 
took  pains  to  copy  :  — 

^^  Gen.  J.  B.  Hood  was  wounded 
11.10  A.  M.  20  Sept.  '63  in  edge 
of  timber  on  Cove  Road  i  mile 
East  op  South,  loosing  his  leg. 

It  was  exactly  eleven  o'clock  as  I  went  up 
the  hill  toward  the  tower,  and  the  workmen 


CHICKAMAUGA.  83 

were  already  taking  down  their  dinner-pails. 
Standard  time,  so  called,  is  an  unquestioned 
convenience,  but  the  stomach  of  a  day- 
laborer  has  little  respect  for  convention,  and 
is  not  to  be  appeased  by  a  setting  back  of 
the  clock.  For  my  own  part,  I  was  not 
hungry,  —  in  that  respect,  as  in  some  others, 
I  might  have  envied  the  day-laborers,  — 
but  as  men  of  a  certain  amusing  sort  are 
said  to  turn  up  their  trousers  in  New  York 
when  it  rains  in  London,  so  I  felt  it  patri- 
otic to  nibble  at  my  luncheon  as  best  I 
could,  now  that  the  clocks  were  striking 
twelve  in  Boston. 

The  hour  (but  it  was  two  hours)  calls  for 
little  description.  The  breeze  was  delicious, 
and  the  hazy  landscape  beautiful.  The  cow- 
bells and  the  locusts  filled  the  air  with  mu- 
sic, the  birds  kept  me  company,  and  for  half 
an  hour  or  more  I  had  human  society  that 
was  even  more  agreeable.  When  the  work- 
men had  eaten  their  dinner  at  the  foot  of 
the  tower,  four  of  them  climbed  the  stairs, 
and  my  field-glass  proved  so  pleasing  a 
novelty  that  they  stayed  till  their  time  was 
up,  to  the  very  last  minute.  One  after  an- 
other took  the  glass,  and  no  sooner  had  it 


84  CHICKAMAUGA. 

gone  the  rounds  once  than  it  started  again  ; 
for  meanwhile  every  man  had  thought  of 
something  else  that  he  wanted  to  look  at. 
They  were  above  concealing  their  delight, 
or  affecting  any  previous  acquaintance  with 
such  a  toy,  and  probably  I  never  before 
gave  so  much  pleasure  by  so  easy  a  means. 
I  believe  I  was  as  happy  as  if  the  blue-wing 
had  sung  a  full  hour.  They  were  rough- 
looking  men,  perhaps,  at  least  they  were 
coarsely  dressed,  but  none  of  them  spoke 
a  rude  word ;  and  when  the  last  moment 
came,  one  of  them,  in  the  simplest  and  gen- 
tlest manner,  asked  me  to  accept  three  relics 
(bullets)  which  he  had  picked  up  in  the 
last  day  or  two  on  the  hill.  It  was  no  great 
thing,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was  better :  it  was 
one  of  those  little  acts  which,  from  their 
perfect  and  unexpected  grace,  can  never  be 
forgotten. 

A  jaunt  through  the  woods  past  the  Kelly 
house,  after  luncheon,  brought  me  to  a 
superfine,  spick-and-span  new  road,  —  like 
the  new  government  "  boulevard  "  on  Mis- 
sionary Kidge,  of  which  it  may  be  a  con- 
tinuation, —  following  which  I  came  to  the 
Brotherton   house,    another   war-time  land- 


CHICKAMAUGA.  85 

mark,  weather-beaten  and  fast  going  to  ruin. 
In  the  woods  —  cleared  of  underbrush,  and 
with  little  herbage  —  were  scattered  ground 
flowers :  houstonia,  yellow  and  violet  oxalis, 
phlox,  cranesbill,  bird-foot  violets,  rue  ane- 
mones, and  spring  beauties.  I  remarked 
especially  a  bit  of  bright  gromwell,  such  as 
I  had  found  first  at  Orchard  Knob,  and  a 
single  tuft  of  white  American  cowslip  (Do- 
decatheon),  the  only  specimen  I  had  ever 
seen  growing  wild.  The  flower  that  pleased 
me  most,  however,  was  the  blood-red  catch- 
fly,  which  I  had  seen  first  on  Missionary 
Kidge.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  ap- 
propriate here  on  the  bloody  field  of  Chick- 
amauga.  Appealing  to  fancy  instead  of 
to  fact,  it  nevertheless  spoke  of  the  battle 
almost  as  plainly  as  the  hundreds  of  decapi- 
tated trees,  here  one  and  there  one,  which 
even  the  most  careless  observer  could  not 
fail  to  notice. 

From  the  Brotherton  house  to  the  post- 
office  was  a  sunny  stretch,  but  under  the 
protection  of  my  umbrella  I  compassed  it ; 
and  then,  passing  the  Widow  Glenn's 
(Rosecrans's  headquarters),  on  the  road  to 
Crawfish  Springs,  I   came  to   a   diminutive 


86  CHICKAMAUGA. 

body  of  water,  —  a  sink-hole,  —  wliich  I 
knew  at  once  could  be  nothing  but  Bloody 
Pond.  At  the  time  of  the  fight  it  contained 
the  only  water  to  be  had  for  a  long  distance. 
It  was  fiercely  contended  for,  therefore,  and 
men  and  horses  drank  from  it  greedily, 
while  other  men  and  horses  lay  dead  in  it, 
having  dropped  while  drinking.  Now  a 
fence  runs  through  it,  leaving  an  outer  seg- 
ment of  it  open  to  the  road  for  the  conven- 
ience of  passing  teams  ;  and  when  I  came  in 
sight  of  the  spot,  two  boys  were  fishing 
round  the  further  edge.  Not  far  beyond 
was  an  unfinished  granite  tower,  on  which 
no  one  was  at  work,  though  a  derrick  still 
protruded  from  the  top.  It  offered  the  best 
of  shade,  —  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock,  — 
in  the  comfort  of  which  I  sat  awhile,  think- 
ing of  the  past,  and  watching  the  peaceful 
labors  of  two  or  three  men  who  were  cidti- 
vating  a  broad  ploughed  field  directly  before 
me,  crossing  and  recrossing  it  in  the  sun. 
Then  I  took  the  road  again;  but  by  this 
time  I  had  relinquished  aU  thought  of  walk- 
ing to  Crawfish  Springs,  and  so  did  nothing 
but  idle  along.  Once,  I  remember,  I  turned 
aside  to  explore  a  lane  running  up  to  a  hiU- 


CHICKAMAUGA.  87 

side  cattle  pasture,  stopping  by  the  way  to 
admire  the  activities  —  and  they  were  ac- 
tivities —  of  a  set  of  big  scavenger  beetles. 
Next,  I  tried  for  half  a  mile  a  fine  new  road 
leading  across  the  park  to  the  left,  with 
thick,  uncleared  woods  on  one  side ;  and 
then  I  went  back  to  Bloody  Pond. 

The  place  was  now  deserted,  and  I  took 
a  seat  under  a  tree  opposite.  Prodigious 
bullfrogs,  big  enough  to  have  been  growing 
ever  since  the  war,  lay  here  and  there  upon 
the  water ;  now  calling  in  the  lustiest  bass, 
now  falling  silent  again  after  one  comical 
expiring  gulp.  It  was  getting  toward  the 
cool  of  the  afternoon.  Already  the  birds 
felt  it.  A  wood  thrush's  voice  rang  out 
at  intervals  from  somewhere  beyond  the 
ploughed  land,  and  a  field  sparrow  chanted 
nearer  by.  At  the  same  time  my  eye  was 
upon  a  pair  of  kingbirds,  —  wayfarers  here- 
about, to  judge  from  their  behavior ;  a 
crested  flycatcher  stood  guard  at  the  top  of 
a  lofty  dead  tree,  and  a  rough-winged  swal- 
low alighted  on  the  margin  of  the  pool,  and 
began  bathing  with  great  enjoyment.  It 
made  me  comfortable  to  look  at  him.  By 
and  by  two  young  fellows  with  fishing-poles 
came  down  the  railroad. 


88  CHICKAMAUGA. 

"Why  is  this   called   Bloody  Pond?"  I 
asked. 

"Why?" 

"Yes." 

"  Why,  there  were  a  lot  of  soldiers  killed 
here  in  the  war,  and  the  pond  got  bloody." 

The  irranite  tower  in  the  shadow  of  which 
I  had  rested  awhile  ago  was  General 
Wilder' s  monument,  they  said.  His  head- 
quarters were  there.  Then  they  passed  on 
down  the  track  out  of  sight,  and  all  was 
silent  once  more,  till  a  chickadee  gave  out 
his  sweet  and  quiet  song  just  behind  me,  and 
a  second  swallow  dropped  upon  the  water's 
edge.  The  pond  was  of  the  smallest  and 
meanest,  —  muddy  shore,  muddy  bottom, 
and  muddy  water;  but  men  fought  and 
died  for  it  in  those  awful  September  days 
of  heat  and  dust  and  thirst.  There  was  no 
better  place  on  the  field,  perhaps,  in  which 
to  realize  the  horrors  of  the  battle,  and  I 
was  glad  to  have  the  chickadee's  voice  the 
last  sound  in  my  ears  as  I  turned  away. 


« 


ORCHAKD  KNOB  AND  THE  NATIONAL 
CEMETERY. 

The  street  cars  that  run  tlirough  the  open 
valley  country  from  Chattanooga  to  Mission- 
ar}^  Ridge,  pass  between  two  places  of  pecu- 
liar interest  to  Northern  visitors,  —  Orchard 
Knob  on  the  left,  and  the  national  cemetery 
on  the  right.  Of  these,  the  Knob  remains 
in  all  the  desolation  of  war-time  ;  nnfenced, 
and  without  so  much  as  a  tablet  to  inform 
the  stranger  where  he  is  and  what  was  done 
here ;  a  low,  round-topped  hill,  dry,  stony, 
thin-soiled,  with  out-cropping  ledges  and 
a  sprinkling  of  stunted  cedars  and  pines. 
Some  remains  of  rifle-pits  are  its  only  mon- 
ument, unless  we  reckon  as  such  a  cedar 
rather  larger  than  its  fellows,  which  must 
have  been  of  some  size  thirty  years  ago,  and 
now  bears  the  marks  of  abundant  hard  usage. 

The  hill  was  taken  by  the  Federal  troops 
on  the  23d  of  November,  1863,  by  way  of 
"  overture  to  the  battle  of  Chattanooga," 
Grant,  Thomas,  Hooker,  Granger,  Howard, 


f 


90  OBCHABD  KNOB. 

and  otliers  overlooking  the  engagement  from 
the  rami^arts  of  Fort  Wood.  The  next  day, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  Hooker's  men  carried 
Lookout  Mountain,  while  the  multitude  be- 
low, hearing  the  commotion,  wondered  what 
could  be  going  on  above  them,  till  suddenly 
the  clouds  lifted,  and  behold,  the  Confeder- 
ates were  in  full  flight.  Then,  says  an  eye- 
witness, there  "  went  up  a  mighty  cheer  from 
the  thirty  thousand  in  the  valley,  that  was 
heard  above  the  battle  by  their  comrades  on 
the  mountain."  On  the  day  following,  for 
events  followed  each  other  fast  in  that  spec- 
tacular campaign.  Grant  and  Thomas  had 
established  themselves  on  Orchard  Knob, 
and  late  in  the  afternoon  the  Union  army, 
exceeding  its  orders,  stormed  Missionary 
Eidge,  put  the  army  of  Bragg  to  sudden 
rout,  and  completed  one  of  the  really  deci- 
sive victories  of  the  war. 

For  a  man  who  wishes  to  feel  the  memory 
of  that  stirring  time  there  is  no  better  place 
than  Orchard  Knob,  where  Grant  stood  and 
anxiously  watched  the  course  of  the  battle, 
a  battle  of  which  he  declared  that  it  was 
won  "  under  the  most  trying  circumstances 
presented  during  the  war."     For  my  own 


ORCHARD  KNOB.  91 

part,  I  can  see  the  man  himself  as  I  read  the 
words  of  one  who  was  there  with  him.  The 
stormers  of  Missionary  Ridge,  as  I  have 
said,  after  making  the  demonstration  they 
had  been  ordered  to  make,  kept  on  up  the 
slope,  thinking  "  the  time  had  come  to  finish 
the  battle  of  Chickamauga."  "  As  soon  as 
this  movement  was  seen  from  Orchard 
Knob,"  writes  General  Fullerton,  "  Grant 
turned  quickly  to  Thomas,  who  stood  by  his 
side,  and  I  heard  him  say  angrily,  '  Thomas, 
who  ordered  those  men  up  the  ridge?' 
Thomas  replied  in  his  usual  slow,  quiet  man- 
ner, 'I don't  know;  I  did  not.'  Then,  ad- 
dressing General  Gordon  Granger,  he  said, 
'•  Did  you  order  them  up.  Granger  ?  '  '  No,' 
said  Granger ;  '  they  started  up  without 
orders.  When  those  fellows  get  started  all 
hell  can't  stop  them.' "  In  the  heat  of  battle 
a  soldier  may  be  pardoned,  I  suppose,  if  his 
speech  smells  of  sulphur  ;  and  after  the  event 
an  army  is  hardly  to  be  censured  for  beating 
the  enemy  a  day  ahead  of  time.  I  speak  as 
a  civilian.  Military  men,  no  doubt,  find  in- 
subordination, even  on  the  right  side,  a  less 
pardonable  offense  ;  a  fact  which  may  ex- 
plain why  General  Grant,  in  his  history  of 


92  ORCHABD  KNOB. 

the  battle,  written  many  years  afterward, 
makes  no  mention  of  this  its  most  dramatic 
incident,  so  that  the  reader  of  his  narrative 
would  never  divine  but  that  everything  had 
been  done  according  to  the  plans  and  orders 
of  the  general  in  command. 

Orders  or  no  orders,  the  fight  was  won. 
That  was  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  It 
was  now  a  pleasant  May  afternoon,  the 
afternoon  of  May-day  itself.  The  date,  in- 
deed, was  the  immediate  occasion  of  my 
presence.  I  had  started  from  Chattanooga 
with  the  intention  of  going  once  more  to 
Missionary  Ridge,  which  just  now  offered 
peculiar  attractions  to  a  stranger  of  ornitho- 
logical proclivities.  But  the  car  was  full 
of  laughing,  smartly  dressed  colored  people  ; 
they  were  bound  for  the  same  place,  it  ap- 
peared, on  their  annual  picnic  ;  and,  being 
in  a  quiet  mood,  I  took  the  hint  and  dropped 
out  by  the  way. 

There  was  much  to  feel  but  little  to  see  at 
Orchard  Knob  ;  and  yet  I  recall  two  plants 
that  I  found  there  for  the  first  time  ;  a  low 
gromwell  (^Lithospermum  canescens)^  with 
clustered  bright  yellow  flowers,  and  an  odd 
and  homely  greenish  milkweed  (^Asclepias 


OECHABD  KNOB.  93 

ohovata).  The  yarrow-leaved  ragwort  was 
there  also,  and  the  tall  blue  baptisia ;  but 
as  well  as  I  can  recollect,  not  one  dainty 
and  modest  nosegay-blossom  ;  not  even  the 
houstonia,  which  seemed  to  grow  everywhere, 
though  after  a  strangely  sparse  and  depau- 
perate fashion.  As  I  said  to  begin  with,  the 
Knob  is  a  desolate  place.  It  made  me  think 
of  the  Scriptural  phrase  about  "  the  besom 
of  destruction."  I  can  imagine  that  mourn- 
ers of  the  "  Lost  Cause,"  if  such  there  still 
be,  might  see  upon  it  the  signs  of  a  place 
accursed. 

Far  otherwise  is  it  with  the  national  cem- 
etery. That  is  a  spot  of  which  the  nation 
takes  care.  Here  are  shaven  lawns,  which, 
nevertheless,  you  are  permitted  to  walk  over  ; 
and  shrubbery  and  trees,  both  in  grateful 
profusion,  but  not  planted  so  thickly  as  to 
make  the  inclosure  either  a  wood  or  a  gar- 
den; and  where  the  ledge  crops  out,  it  is 
pleasingly  and  naturally  draped  with  vines 
of  the  Virginia  creeper.  One  thing  I  no- 
ticed upon  the  instant ;  there  were  no  Eng- 
lish sparrows  inside  the  wall.  The  city  is 
overrun  with  them  beyond  anything  I  have 
seen  elsewhere  ;  within  two  hundred  feet  of 


94  ORCHARD  KNOB. 

the  cemetery  gate,  as  I  passed  out,  there 
were  at  least  two  hundred  sparrows ;  but 
inside,  on  three  visits,  I  saw  not  one  !  How 
this  exemption  had  been  brought  about,  I 
did  not  learn ;  but  it  makes  of  the  cemetery 
a  sort  of  heavenly  place.  I  felt  the  silence 
as  the  sweetest  of  music  (it  was  a  Sunday 
afternoon),  and  thought  instantly  of  Comus 
and  his  "  prisoned  soul "  lapped  in  Elysium. 
If  I  knew  whom  to  thank,  I  would  name 
him. 

A  mocking-bird,  aloft  upon  the  topmost 
twig  of  a  tall  willow  near  the  entrance,  was 
pouring  forth  a  characteristic  medley,  in  the 
midst  of  which  he  suddenly  called  loick-a- 
wicJc,  vdcha-wick,  in  the  flicker's  very  happi- 
est style.  "  So  flickers  must  now  and  then 
come  to  Chattanooga,"  I  said  to  myself,  for 
up  to  that  time  I  had  seen  none.  It  was 
a  pleasure  to  hear  this  great  songster  of 
the  South  singing  above  these  thousands  of 
Northern  graves.  It  seemed  7ight ;  for  time 
and  the  event  will  prove,  if,  indeed,  they 
have  not  proved  already,  that  the  South, 
even  more  than  the  North,  has  reason  to  be 
glad  of  the  victory  which  these  deaths  went 
far  to  win. 


OBCHABD  KNOB.  95 

A  tablet  on  one  of  tlie  cannons  which 
stand  upright  on  the  highest  knoll  informs 
visitors  that  the  cemetery  was  "  established  " 
in  1863.  The  number  of  burials  is  given  as 
12,876,  of  which  nearly  five  thousand  are  of 
bodies  unidentified.  A  great  proportion  of 
the  stones  bear  nothing  but  a  number.  On 
others  is  a  name,  or  part  of  a  name,  with 
the  name  of  the  State  underneath.  One  I 
noticed  that  was  inscribed :  — 


JOHN 
N.  Y. 


An  attendant  of  whom  I  inquired  if  any 
New  England  men  were  here,  answered  that 
there  were  a  few  members  of  the  Thirty- 
third  Massachusetts.  I  hope  the  New  Eng- 
landers  resident  in  Chattanooga  do  not  for- 
get them  on  Memorial  Day. 

Twice  in  the  year,  at  least,  the  place  has 
many  Northern  visitors.  They  arrive  on 
wings,  mostly  by  night,  and  such  of  them  as 
came  under  my  eye  acted  as  if  they  appreci- 
ated the  quiet  of  the  inclosure,  a  quiet  which 
their  own  presence  made  but  the  more  ap- 
preciable. Scattered  over  the  lawns  were 
silent  groups  of  white-throated  sparrows,  — 


96  OBCHARD  KNOB. 

on  their  way  to  New  Hampshire,  perhaps,  or 
it  might  be  to  upper  Michigan  ;  and  not  far 
from  the  entrance,  and  almost  directly  under 
the  mocking-bird,  were  two  or  three  white- 
crowned  sparrows,  the  only  ones  found  in 
Tennessee.  On  an  earlier  visit  (April  29) 
I  saw  here  my  only  Tennessee  robins  — 
five  birds  ;  and  most  welcome  they  were. 
Months  afterward,  a  resident  of  Missionary 
Ridge  wrote  to  me  that  a  pair  had  nested  in 
the  cemetery  that  year,  though  to  his  great 
regret  he  did  not  know  of  it  till  too  late. 
He  had  never  seen  a  robin's  nest,  he  added, 
and  was  acquainted  with  the  bird  only  as  a 
migrant.  Such  are  some  of  the  deprivations 
of  life  in  eastern  Tennessee.  May  and  June 
without  robins  or  song  sparrows  ! 

On  the  last  of  my  three  visits,  a  small 
flock  of  black-poll  warblers  were  in  the  trees, 
and  two  of  them  gave  me  a  pleasant  little 
surprise  by  dropping  to  the  ground,  and 
feeding  for  a  long  time  upon  the  lawn. 
That  was  something  new  for  black-polls,  so 
far  as  my  observation  had  gone,  and  an  en- 
couraging thing  to  look  at:  another  sign, 
where  all  signs  are  welcome,  that  the  life  of 
birds  is  less  strictly  instinctive  —  less  a  mat- 


ORCHAED  KNOB.  97 

ter  of  inherited  habit,  and  more  a  matter  of 
personal  intelligence  —  than  has  commonly- 
been  assumed.  In  general,  no  doubt,  like 
human  beings,  they  do  what  their  fathers 
did,  what  they  themselves  have  done  here- 
tofore. So  much  is  to  be  expected,  since 
their  faculties  and  desires  remain  the  same, 
and  they  have  the  same  world  to  live  in  ; 
but  when  exceptional  circumstances  arise, 
their  conduct  becomes  exceptional.  In  other 
words,  they  do  as  a  few  of  the  quicker- 
witted  among  men  do  —  suit  their  conduct 
to  altered  conditions.  A  month  ago  I  should 
have  said,  after  years  of  acquaintance,  that 
no  birds  could  be  more  strictly  arboreal  than 
golden-crowned  kinglets.  But  recently,  I 
happened  upon  a  little  group  of  them  that 
for  a  week  or  more  fed  persistently  on  the 
ground  in  a  certain  piece  of  wood.  Then 
and  there,  for  some  reason,  food  was  plenti- 
ful on  the  snow  and  among  the  dead  leaves  ; 
and  the  kinglets  had  no  scruples  about  fol- 
lowing where  duty  called  them. 

At  the  same  time  a  friend  of  mine,  a 
young  farmer,  was  at  his  winter's  work  in 
the  woods ;  and  being  alone,  and  a  lover  of 
birds,  he  had  taken  a  fancy  to  experiment 


98  ORCHABD  KNOB. 

with  a  few  chickadees,  to  see  how  tame  a 
little  encouragement  would  make  them.  A 
flock  of  five  came  about  him  day  after  day, 
at  luncheon-time,  and  by  dint  of  sitting 
motionless  he  soon  had  two  of  them  on  terms 
of  something  like  intimacy ;  so  that  they 
would  alight  on  his  hand  and  help  them- 
selves to  a  feast.  He  was  not  long  in  discov- 
ering, and  reporting  to  me,  that  they  carried 
much  of  the  food  to  the  trees  round  about, 
and  packed  it  into  crannies  of  the  bark. 

"Are  you  sure  of  that  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  answered  ;  "  I  saw  them  do 
it,  and  then  I  went  to  the  trees  and  found 
the  crumbs." 

Did  any  one  ever  suspect  the  chickadee  of 
such  providence  ?  If  so,  I  never  heard  of  it ; 
and  it  is  more  likely,  I  think,  that  the  birds 
had  never  before  done  anything  of  the  sort ; 
but  now,  finding  suddenly  a  supj)ly  far  in 
excess  of  the  demand  (one  day  they  ate  and 
carried  away  half  a  doughnut),  they  had 
sense  enough  to  improve  the  opportunity^. 
What  they  had  done,  or  had  not  done,  in 
times  past,  was  nothing  to  the  point,  since 
they  were  creatures  not  of  memory  alone, 
but  of  intelligence  and  a  measure  of  reason. 


ORCHABD  KNOB.  99 

Beside  the  unmistakable  migrants,  — 
white-tliroats,  white-crowns,  and  black-polls, 
—  there  were  numbers  of  more  southern 
birds  in  the  national  cemetery.  Among 
them  I  noticed  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo,  crow 
blackbirds,  orchard  orioles,  summer  tanagers, 
catbirds,  a  thrasher,  a  bluebird,  wood  pewees, 
chippers,  blue-gray  gnatcatchers,  yellow  war- 
blers, wood  thrushes,  and  chats.  All  these 
looked  sufficiently  at  home  except  the  chats  ; 
and  it  helps  to  mark  the  exceeding  abun- 
dance of  these  last  in  the  Chattanooga  region 
that  they  should  show  themselves  without 
reserve  in  a  spot  so  frequented  and  so  want- 
ing in  close  cover.  One  of  the  orioles  sang 
in  the  manner  of  a  fox  sparrow,  while  one 
that  sang  daily  under  my  window,  on  Cam- 
eron Hill,  never  once  suggested  that  bird, 
but  often  the  purple  finch.  The  two  facts 
offer  a  good  idea  of  this  fine  songster's  qual- 
ity and  versatility.  The  organ  tones  of  the 
yellow-throated  vireo  and  the  minor  whistle 
of  the  wood  pewee  were  sweetly  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  place,  a  spirit  hard 
fully  and  exactly  to  express,  a  mingling  of 
regret  and  exultation.  What  mattered  it 
that  all  these  men  had  perished,  as  it  seemed, 


100  ORCHABD  KNOB. 

before  their  time  ?  —  that  so  many  of  them 
were  lying  in  nameless  graves  ?  We  shall 
all  die ;  few  of  us  so  worthily ;  and  when 
we  are  gone,  of  what  use  will  be  a  name 
upon  a  stone,  a  name  which,  after  a  few 
years  at  the  most,  no  passer-by  will  be  con- 
cerned to  read  ?  Happy  is  he  who  dies  to 
some  purpose.  It  would  have  been  good,  I 
thought,  to  see  over  the  cemetery  gate  the 
brave  old  Latin  sentence,  Dulce  et  decorum 
est  pro  pfCLtria  mori. 

The  human  visitors,  of  whom  one  day 
there  might  have  been  a  hundred,  were 
largely  people  of  color.  All  were  quiet 
and  orderly,  in  couples  and  family  groups. 
Most  of  them,  I  remarked,  went  to  look  at 
the  only  striking  monument  in  the  grounds, 
a  locomotive  and  tender  (the  "  General  "  ) 
on  a  pedestal  of  marble  —  "Ohio's  Trib- 
ute to  the  Andrews  Eaiders,  1862."  On 
three  faces  of  the  pedestal  are  lists  of  the 
"  exchanged,"  the  "  executed,"  and  the 
"  escaped." 

One  thing,  one  only,  grated  upon  my  feel- 
ings. In  a  corner  of  the  inclosure  is  the 
Superintendent's  house,  with  a  stable  and 
out-buildings ;  and  at  the  gate  the  visitor  is 


OBCHABD  KNOB.  101 

suddenly  struck  in  the  face  with  this  notice 
in  flaring  capitals:  Keep  Out!  This 
Means  You  !  That  is  brutality  beyond  ex- 
cuse. But  perhaps  it  answers  its  purpose. 
For  my  own  part,  I  got  out  of  the  neighbor- 
hood as  quickly  as  possible.  I  liked  better 
the  society  of  the  graves ;  at  such  a  price  a 
dead  soldier  was  better  than  a  live  superin- 
tendent; and  to  take  the  unpleasant  taste 
out  of  my  mouth  I  stopped  to  read  again  a 
stanza  on  one  of  the  metal  tablets  set  at  in- 
tervals along  the  driveway :  — 

"  On  Fame's  eternal  camping"  ground 
Their  silent  tents  are  spread, 
And  Glory  guards,  with  solenm  round, 
The  bivouac  of  the  dead." 

Far  be  the  day  when  these  Southern  fields 
of  Northern  graves  shall  fall  into  forgetful- 
ness  and  neglect. 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVER. 

To  an  idler  desirous  of  seeing  wild  life  on 
easy  terms  Chattanooga  offers  this  advan- 
tage, that  electric  cars  take  him  quickly  out 
of  the  city  in  different  directions,  and  drop 
him  in  the  woods.  In  this  way,  on  an  after- 
noon too  sultry  for  extended  travel  on  foot, 
I  visited  a  wooded  hillside  on  the  further 
bank  of  the  Tennessee,  a  few  miles  above 
the  town. 

The  car  was  stiU  turning  street  corner 
after  street  corner,  making  its  zigzag  course 
toward  the  bridge,  when  I  noticed  a  rustic 
old  gentleman  at  my  side  looking  intently 
at  the  floor.  Apparently  he  suspected  some- 
thing amiss.  He  was  unused  to  the  ways 
of  electricity,  I  thought,  —  a  verdancy  by  no 
means  inexcusable.  But  as  he  leaned  far- 
ther forward,  and  looked  and  listened  with 
more  and  more  absorption,  the  matter  —  not 
his  ignorance,  but  his  simple-hearted  betrayal 
of  it  —  began  to  seem  amusing.  For  myself, 
to  be  sure,  I  knew  nothing  about  electricity, 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVER.     103 

but  I  liad  wit  enough  to  sit  still  and  let  the 
car  run;  a  degree  of  sophistication  which 
passes  pretty  well  as  a  substitute  for  wisdom 
in  a  world  where  men  are  distinguished  from 
children  not  so  much  by  more  knowledge  as 
by  less  curiosity.  In  the  present  instance, 
however,  as  the  event  proved,  the  dunce's 
cap  belonged  on  the  other  head.  My  coun- 
tryman's stare  was  less  verdant  than  his 
next  neighbor's  smile ;  for  in  a  few  minutes 
the  conductor  was  taking  up  a  trap  door  at 
our  feet,  to  get  at  the  works,  some  part  of 
which  had  fallen  out  of  gear,  though  they 
were  still  running.  Twice  the  car  was 
stopped  for  a  better  examination  into  the  dif- 
ficulty, and  at  last  a  new  wedge,  or  some- 
thing else,  was  inserted,  and  we  proceeded 
on  our  way,  while  the  motorman  who  had 
done  the  job  busied  himself  with  removing 
from  his  coat,  as  best  he  could,  the  oil  with 
which  it  had  become  besmeared  in  the  course 
of  the  operation.  It  was  rather  hard,  he 
thought,  to  have  to  spoil  his  clothes  in  re- 
pair-shop work  of  that  kind,  especially  as  he 
was  paid  nothing  for  it,  and  had  to  find 
himself.  As  for  my  rustic-looking  seat-mate, 
he  was  an  old  hand  at  the  business,  it  ap- 


104     AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  BIVEB. 

peared,  and  his  practiced  ear  had  detected  a 
jar  in  the  machinery. 

We  left  the  car  in  company,  he  and  I, 
at  the  end  of  the  route,  and  pretty  soon  it 
transpired  that  he  was  an  old  Union  soldier, 
of  Massachusetts  parentage,  but  born  in  Can- 
ada and  a  member  of  a  Michigan  regiment. 
Just  how  these  autobiographical  details  came 
to  be  mentioned  I  fail  now  to  remember, 
but  in  that  country,  where  so  much  history 
had  been  made,  it  was  hard  to  keep  the  past 
out  of  one's  conversation.  He  had  been  in 
Sheridan's  force  when  it  stormed  Missionary 
Eidge.  As  they  went  up  the  heights,  he 
said,  they  were  between  two  fires ;  as  much 
in  danger  from  Federal  bullets  as  from  Con- 
federate; "but  Sheridan  kept  right  on." 
An  old  woman  who  lived  on  the  Ridge  told 
him  that  she  asked  General  Bragg  if  the 
Yankees  would  take  the  hill.  "Take  the 
hill !  "  said  Bragg ;  "  they  could  as  well  fly." 
Just  then  she  saw  the  blue-coats  coming, 
and  pointed  them  out  to  the  General.  He 
looked  at  them,  put  spurs  to  his  horse, 
"  and,"  added  the  woman,  "  I  ain't  seen  him 
since."  All  of  which,  for  aught  I  know, 
may  be  true. 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVER.     105 

The  talkative  veteran  was  now  on  liis  way 
to  find  an  old  friend  of  his  who  lived  some- 
where around  here,  he  did  n't  know  just 
where;  and  as  my  course  lay  in  the  same 
general  direction  we  went  across  lots  and  up 
the  hill  together,  he  rehearsing  the  past, 
and  I  gladly  putting  myself  to  school.  In 
my  time  history  was  studied  from  text-books ; 
but  the  lecture  system  is  better.  By  and 
by  we  approached  a  solitary  cabin,  on  the 
dilapidated  piazza  of  which  sat  the  very 
man  for  whom  my  companion  was  looking. 
"Very  sick  to-day,"  he  said,  in  response 
to  a  greeting.  His  appearance  harmonized 
with  his  words,  —  and  with  the  piazza ;  and 
his  manners  were  pitched  on  the  same  key ; 
so  that  it  was  in  a  downright  surly  tone  that 
he  pointed  out  a  gate  through  which  I  could 
make  an  exit  toward  the  woods  on  the  other 
side  of  the  house.  I  had  asked  the  way, 
and  was  glad  to  take  it.  Not  that  I  was 
greatly  offended.  A  sick  man  on  one  of  his 
bad  days  has  some  excuse  for  a  little  impa- 
tience; a  far  better  excuse  than  I  should 
have  for  alluding  to  the  matter  at  this  late 
date,  if  I  did  not  improve  the  occasion  to 
add  that  this  was  the  only  bit  of  anything 


106      AJS'  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVEB. 

like  incivility  that  I  have  ever  received  at 
the  South,  where  I  have  certainly  not  been 
slow  to  ask  questions  of  all  sorts  of  people. 

A  little  jaunt  along  a  foot-path  brought 
me  unexpectedly  to  a  second  cabin,  unin- 
habited. It  was  built  of  boards,  not  logs, 
with  the  usual  outside  chimney  at  one  end, 
a  broad  veranda,  a  door,  and  no  window ;  a 
house  to  fill  a  social  economist  with  admira- 
tion at  the  low  terms  to  which  civilized  life 
can  be  reduced.  Thoreau  himself  was  out- 
done, though  the  veranda,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, seemed  a  dispensable  bit  of  fashion- 
able conformity,  with  forest  trees  on  all 
sides  crowding  the  roof.  Half  the  floor  had 
fallen  away ;  yet  the  house  could  not  have 
been  long  unoccupied,  for  at  one  end  the 
wall  was  hung  with  newspapers,  among 
which  was  a  Boston  "  weekly  "  less  than  two 
years  old.  From  it  looked  the  portrait  of  a 
New  England  college  president,  and  at  the 
head  of  the  page  stood  a  list  of  "  eminent 
contributors."  I  ran  the  names  over,  but 
somehow,  in  these  wild  and  natural  sur- 
roundings, they  did  not  seem  so  very  impres- 
sive. I  think  it  has  been  said  before,  per- 
haps by  Thoreau,  that  most  of  what  we  call 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  BIVER.      107 

literature  wears   an  artificial  and  unimpor- 
tant look  when  taken  out-of-doors. 

Near   this    cabin  I    struck    a   road    ("a 
sort    of    road,"     according     to    my    note- 
book) through  the  woods,  following  which  I 
shortly  came  to  a  grave-yard,  or  rather  to  a 
bunch  of  graves,  for  there  was  no  inclosure, 
nor   even  a  clearing.     One   grave  —  or   it 
may  have  been  a  tiny  family  lot  —  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  curb    of    stone.     The  others, 
with  a  single  exception,  were  marked  only 
by  low  mounds  of  gravel.     The  one  excep- 
tion was  a  grave  with  a  head-board,  —  the 
grave  of   "  Little   Theodosia,"  a   year   and 
some   months   old.     '' Theodosia  !"  — even 
into  a  windowless  cabin  a  baby  brings  ro- 
mance.   Under  the  name  and  the  two  dates 
was  this  legend:  "  She  is  happy."     Of  ten 
inscriptions  on  marble  monuments  nine  will 
be  found  less  simply  appropriate. 

By  a  circuitous  course  the  wood  road 
brought  me  to  a  larger  cabin,  in  a  larger 
clearing.  Here  a  pleasant-spoken,  neigh- 
borly woman,  with  a  child  in  her  arms, 
called  off  her  dog,  and  pointed  out  a  path 
beyond  a  pair  of  bars.  That  path,  she 
said,  would  carry  me  to  the  river,  — to  the 


108     AN  AFTEBNOON  BY  THE  BIVER. 

water's  edge.  And  so  it  did,  down  a  pleas- 
ant wooded  hillside,  wMcli  an  unwonted 
profusion  of  bushes  and  ferns  made  excep- 
tionally attractive.  At  the  end  of  the  path 
a  lordly  elm  and  a  lordlier  buttonwood,  both 
of  them  loaded  with  lusty  vines  (besides 
clusters  of  mistletoe,  I  believe),  gave  me 
shelter  from  the  sun  while  I  sat  and  gazed 
at  the  strong  eager  current  of  the  Tennessee 
hurrying  onward  without  a  ripple.  As  my 
foot  touched  the  beach  a  duck  —  I  could 
not  tell  of  what  kind  —  sprang  out  of  the 
water  and  went  dashing  off.  She  had 
learned  her  lesson.  In  the  duck's  primer 
one  of  the  first  questions  is  :  "  What  is  a 
man  ?  "  and  the  answer  follows  :  "  Man  is 
a  gun-bearing  animal."  In  the  treetops  a 
golden  warbler  and  a  redstart  were  singing. 
Then  I  heard  a  puffing  of  steam,  and  by  and 
by  a  tug  came  round  a  turn,  pushing  labori- 
ously up  stream  a  loaded  barge.  It  was  the 
Ocoee  of  Chattanooga,  and  the  two  or  three 
mariners  on  board  seemed  to  find  the  sight 
of  a  stranger  in  that  unlooked-for  place  a 
welcome  break  in  the  monotony  of  their  in- 
land voyage. 

On  the  bushy,  ferny  slope,  as  I  returned. 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVER,      109 

two  Kentucky  warblers  were  singing  in  op- 
posite directions.  So  I  called  them,  at  all 
events.  But  they  were  too  far  away  to  be 
gone  after,  as  my  mood  then  was,  and  soon 
I  began  to  wonder  whether  I  might  not  be 
mistaken.  Possibly  they  were  Carolina 
wrens,  whose  cherry  is  not  altogether  unlike 
the  Kentucky's  Murwee.  The  question 
will  perhaps  seem  unreasonable  to  readers 
long  familiar  with  the  two  birds  ;  but  let 
them  put  themselves  in  a  stranger's  place, 
remembering  that  this  was  only  his  third 
or  fourth  hearing  of  the  Kentucky's  music. 
As  the  doubt  grew  on  me  (and  nothing 
grows  faster  than  doubt)  I  sat  down  and 
listened.  Yes,  they  were  Kentuckies ;  but 
anon  the  uncertainty  came  back,  and  I  kept 
my  seat.  Then  a  sound  of  humming-bird 
wings  interrupted  my  cogitations,  and  in 
another  moment  the  bird  was  before  me, 
sipping  at  a  scarlet  catchfly,  —  battlefield 
pink.  I  caught  the  flash  of  his  throat.  It 
was  as  red  as  the  flower  —  beyond  which 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said.  Then  he  van- 
ished (rather  than  went  away),  as  humming- 
birds do ;  but  in  ten  minutes  he  was  there 
again.     I  was  glad  to  see  him.     Birds  of  his 


110      AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  RIVEB. 

kind  were  rare  about  Chattanooga,  though 
afterwards,  in  the  forests  of  Walden's  Ridge, 
they  became  as  common  as  I  ever  saw  them 
anywhere.  The  two  invisible  Kentuckies 
wore  out  my  patience,  but  as  I  came  to  the 
bars  another  sang  near  me.  Him,  by  good 
luck,  I  saw  in  the  act,  and  for  the  time,  at 
least,  my  doubts  were  quieted. 

In  the  woods  and  thickets,  as  I  sauntered 
along,  I  heard  blue  golden-winged  warblers, 
two  more  Kentuckies,  a  blue-gray  gnat- 
catcher,  a  Baehman's  finch,  a  wood  pewee,  a 
quail,  and  the  inevitable  chats,  indigo-birds, 
prairie  warblers,  and  white -eyed  vireos. 
Then,  as  I  drew  near  the  car  track,  I  de- 
scended again  to  the  river-bank  and  walked 
in  the  shade  of  lofty  buttonwoods,  willows, 
and  white  maples,  with  mistletoe  perched  in 
the  upper  branches,  and  poison  ivy  climbing 
far  up  the  trunks  ;  the  whole  standing  in 
great  contrast  to  the  comparatively  stunted 
growth,  mainly  oak,  —  and  largely  black 
jack,  —  on  the  dry  soil  of  the  hillside. 
Across  the  river  were  broad,  level  fields, 
brown  with  cultivation,  in  which  men  were 
at  work,  and  from  the  same  direction  came 
loud  rasping   cries  of   batrachians  of   some 


AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  BIVEE.      Ill 

kind.  For  auglit  that  my  ear  could  detect, 
they  might  be  common  toads  uttering  their 
mysterious,  discordant  midsummer  screams 
in  full  chorus.  Here  were  more  indigo-birds, 
with  red-eyes,  white-eyes,  lisping  black-poll 
warblers,  redstarts,  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo 
(furtive  as  ever,  like  a  bird  with  an  evil 
conscience),  catbirds,  a  thrasher,  a  veery  in 
song  (a  luxury  in  these  parts),  orchard  ori- 
oles, goldfinches,  and  chippers.  A  bluebird 
was  gathering  straws,  and  a  carrion  crow, 
one  of  two  seen  in  Tennessee,  was  soaring- 
high  over  the  river. 

The  "pavilion,"  at  the  terminus  of  the 
car  route,  was  deserted,  and  I  sat  on  the 
piazza  enjoying  the  really  beautiful  prospect 
—  the  river,  the  woods,  and  the  cultivated 
fields.  The  land  hereabout  was  all  in  the 
market.  In  truth,  the  selling  of  building 
lots  seemed  to  be  one  of  the  principal  in- 
dustries of  Chattanooga ;  and  I  was  not 
surprised  to  find  the  good-humored  young 
fellow  behind  the  counter  —  with  its  usual 
appetizing  display  of  cigars,  drinks,  and 
confectionery  —  full  of  the  glories  and  im- 
minent possibilities  of  this  particular  "  sub- 
urb."     He   believed   in   the  river.     Folks 


112     AN  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  EIVEE. 

would  come  this  way,  where  it  was  high  and 
cool.  (On  that  particular  afternoon,  to  be 
sure,  it  was  neither  very  high  nor  very 
cool,  but  of  course  the  weather  is  n'  t  always 
good  anywhere.)  "  Lookout  Mountain  ain't 
what  it  used  to  be,"  he  said,  in  a  burst  of 
confidence.  "  It 's  done  seen  its  best  days. 
Yes,  sir,  it  's  done  seen  its  best  days."  It 
was  not  for  a  stranger,  with  no  investment 
in  view,  to  take  sides  in  such  competitions 
and  rivalries.  I  believed  in  the  river  and 
the  mountain  both,  and  hoped  that  both 
would  survive  their  present  exploitation. 
I  liked  his  talk  better  when  it  turned  upon 
himself.  Nothing  is  more  exhilarating  than 
an  honest  bit  of  personal  brag.  He  was 
never  sick,  he  told  me.  He  knew  nothing 
of  aches  or  pains.  He  could  do  anything 
without  getting  tired.  Save  for  his  slavery 
to  the  counter,  he  seemed  almost  as  well  off 
as  the  birds. 


A  MORNING  IN  THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

The  electric  car  left  me  near  the  Ten- 
nessee, —  at  "  Riverview,"  —  and  thence  I 
walked  into  the  woods,  meaning  to  make 
a  circuit  among  the  hills,  and  at  my  con- 
venience board  an  inward-bound  car  some- 
where between  that  point  and  the  fcity.  The 
weather  was  of  the  kind  that  birds  love  : 
warm  and  still,  after  heavy  showers,  with 
the  sun  now  and  then  breaking  through  the 
clouds.  The  country  was  a  suburb  in  its 
first  estate  :  that  is  to  say,  a  land  company 
had  laid  out  miles  of  streets,  but  as  yet  there 
were  no  houses,  and  the  woods  remained  un- 
harmed. That  was  a  very  comfortable  stage 
of  the  business  to  a  man  on  my  errand. 
The  roads  gave  the  visitor  convenience  of 
access,  —  a  ready  means  of  moving  about  ,^^ 
with  his  eyes  in  the  air,  —  and  at  the  same  'W 
time,  by  making  the  place  more  open,  they 
made  it  more  birdy;  for  birds,  even  the 
greater  part  of  wood  birds,  like  the  borders 
of  a  forest  better  than  its  darker  recesses. 


114     MOBNING  IN  THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

One  thing  I  soon  perceived  :  the  rain  had 
left  the  roads  in  a  condition  of  unspeaka- 
ble adhesiveness.  The  red  clay  balled  up 
my  heels  as  if  it  had  been  moist  snow,  till 
I  pitched  forward  as  I  walked.  I  fancied 
that  I  understood  pretty  well  the  sensations 
of  a  young  lady  in  high-heeled  shoes.  One 
moment,  too,  my  feet  were  weighted  with 
lead ;  then  the  mass  fell  off  in  a  sudden  big 
lump,  and  my  next  few  steps  were  on  air. 
A  graceful,  steady,  self-possessed  gait  was 
out  of  the  question.  As  for  abstaining 
from  all  appearance  of  evil  —  well,  as 
another  and  more  comfortable  Scrij)ture 
says,  "There  is  a  time  for  everything." 
However,  I  was  not  disposed  to  complain. 
We  read  much  about  the  tribulations  of 
Northern  soldiers  on  the  march  in  Virginia, 
—  of  entire  armies  mud-bound  and  helpless. 
Henceforth  I  shall  have  some  better  idea  of 
what  such  statements  mean.  In  that  part 
of  the  world,  I  am  assured,  rubber  overshoes 
have  to  be  tied  on  the  feet  with  strings. 
Mother  Earth  does  not  believe  in  such 
effeminacies,  and  takes  it  upon  herself  to 
pull  them  off. 

The  seventeen-year  locusts  made  the  air 


MOBNING  IN   THE  NORTH  WOODS.     115 

ring.  Heard  at  tlie  right  distance,  the 
sound  lias  a  curious  resemblance,  noticed 
again  and  again,  to  the  far-away,  barely- 
audible  buzz  of  an  electric  car.  For  a  week 
the  air  of  the  valley  woods  had  been  full  of 
it.  I  wondered  over  it  for  a  day  or  two, 
with  no  suspicion  of  its  origin.  Then,  as  I 
waited  for  a  car  at  the  base  of  Missionary 
Ridge,  a  colored  man  who  stood  beside  me 
on  the  platform  gave  me,  without  meaning 
it,  a  lesson  in  natural  history. 

"  The  locuses  are  goin'  it,  this  mornin', 
ain't  they  ?  "  he  said. 

"  The  locuses  ?  "  I  answered,  in  a  tone  of 
inquiry. 

"  Yes.     Don't  you  hear  'em  ?  " 

He  meant  my  mysterious  universal  hum, 
it  appeared.  But  even  then  I  did  not  know 
that  he  spoke  of  the  big,  red-eyed  cicada 
that  I  had  picked  off  a  fence  a  day  or  two 
before  and  looked  at  for  a  moment  with 
ignorant  curiosity.  And  even  when,  by 
dint  of  using  my  own  eyes,  I  learned  so 
much,  I  was  still  unaware  that  this  cicada 
was  the  famous  seventeen-year  locust.  Here 
in  the  north  woods  I  more  than  once  passed 
near  a  swarm  of  the  insects.    At  short  range 


116      MOBNING  IN  THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

the  noise  loses  its  musical  character  ;  so  that 
it  would  be  easy  to  hear  it  without  divining 
any  connection  between  it  and  the  grand 
pervasive  hum  of  the  universal  chorus. 

One  of  the  first  birds  at  which  I  stopped 
to  look  was  a  Kentucky  warbler,  walking 
about  the  ground  and  pausing  now  and  then 
to  sing ;  one  of  six  or  seven  seen  and  heard 
during  the  forenoon.  Few  birds  are  more 
freely  and  easily  observed.  I  mean  in  open 
woodlands  with  clear  margins,  such  as  I  was 
now  exploring.  In  a  mountain  forest,  where 
they  haunt  brookside  jungles  of  laurel  and 
rhododendron,  the  story  is  different,  as  a 
matter  of  course.  How  it  happens  that  the 
same  bird  is  equally  at  home  in  surroundings 
so  dissimilar  is  a  question  I  make  no  attempt 
to  answer. 

All  the  hill  woods,  mostly  oak,  were  dry 
and  stony ;  but  after  a  while  I  came  unex- 
pectedly to  a  valley,  a  place  of  another  sort ; 
not  moist,  to  be  sure,  but  looking  as  if  it 
had  been  moist  at  some  time  or  other  ;  and 
with  pleasant  grassy  openings  and  another 
set  of  trees  —  red  maples,  persimmons,  and 
sweet -gums.  Here  was  a  fine  bunch  of 
birds,  including  many  migrants,  and  I  went 


MOENING  IN   THE  NOBTH  WOODS.      117 

softly  hitlier  and  thither,  scanning  the 
branches  of  one  tree  after  another,  as  a  note 
or  the  stirring  of  a  leaf  attracted  me,  ready 
every  minute  for  the  sight  of  something 
new  and  wonderful.  I  found  nothing,  — 
nothing  new  and  wonderful,  I  mean,  —  but  I 
had  all  the  exhilaration  of  the  chase.  In  the 
company,  nearly  all  of  them  in  song,  were 
wood  thrushes,  a  silent  palm  warbler  (red- 
poll), a  magnolia  warbler,  three  Canadian 
flycatchers,  many  black-polls,  one  or  two 
redstarts,  a  chestnut-sided  warbler,  a  black- 
and-white  creeper,  a  field  sparrow,  a  yellow- 
throated  vireo,  a  wood  pewee,  an  Acadian 
flycatcher,  and  two  or  more  yellow-billed 
cuckoos.  The  red-poll  was  of  a  very  pale 
complexion  (but  I  assert  nothing  as  to  its 
exact  identity,  specific  or  sub-specific),  and 
seemed  to  me  unreasonably  late.  It  was 
the  11th  of  May,  and  birds  of  its  kind  had 
been  passing  through  Massachusetts  by  the 
middle  of  April.  Chestnut-sides  were  scarce 
enough  to  be  interesting,  and  it  was  good 
to  hear  this  lover  of  berry  fields  and  the 
gray  birch  singing  from  a  sweet-gum. 

When  at  last   I   turned  away   from  the 
grassy  glade,  —  where  cattle  were  pasturing, 


118      MOBNING  IN  THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

as  I  now  remember,  —  and  went  back  among 
the  dry  hills  (through  the  powdery  soil  of 
which  the  almost  daily  showers  seemed  to 
rmi  as  through  a  sieve),  I  presently  caught 
sight  of  a  scarlet  tanager, —  a  beauty,  and, 
except  on  the  mountains,  a  rarity.  Then  I 
stopped  —  on  a  street  corner  !  —  to  admire 
the  singing  of  a  Bachman's  finch,  wishing 
also  to  compare  his  plumage  with  that  of  a 
bird  seen  and  greatly  enjoyed  a  few  days 
before  at  Chickamauga.  To  judge  from 
my  limited  observation,  this  is  one  of  the 
sparrows  —  the  song  sparrow  being  another 
—  which  exhibit  a  strange  diversity  of  indi- 
vidual coloration  ;  as  if  the  fashion  were 
not  yet  fully  set,  or  perhaps  were  being 
outgrown.  The  bird  here  in  the  north 
woods,  so  far  as  color  and  markings  went, 
might  well  enough  have  been  of  a  different 
species  from  that  of  the  Chickamauga  singer, 
yet  there  was  no  reason  to  suspect  the  pres- 
ence of  more  than  one  variety  of  PeuccBa,  so 
far  as  I  knew,  and  the  music  of  the  two 
birds  was  precisely  the  same.  A  wonder- 
fully sweet  and  various  tune  it  is ;  with 
sometimes  a  highly  ventriloquial  effect,  as  if 
the  different  measures  or  phrases  came  from 


MORNING  IN   THE  NORTH  WOODS.      119 

different  points.  It  opens  like  the  song 
heard  in  the  Florida  flat-woods,  but  is  even 
more  varied,  both  in  voice  and  in  musical 
form.  So  it  seemed  to  me,  I  mean  to  say  ; 
but  hearing  the  two  a  year  apart,  I  cannot 
speak  without  reserve.  It  is  pleasanter  — 
as  well  as  safer  —  to  praise  both  singers  than 
to  exalt  one  to  the  pulling  down  of  the  other. 
In  appearance,  Bachman's  finch  is  one  of 
the  dullest,  dingiest,  least  prepossessing 
members  of  its  great  family ;  but  its  voice 
and  musical  genius  make  it  a  treasure, 
especially  in  this  comparatively  sparrowless 
country  of  eastern  Tennessee. 

I  have  remarked  that  I  found  this  bird 
upon  a  street  corner.  Unhappily  my  notes 
do  not  enable  me  to  be  more  specific.  It 
may  have  been  at  the  corner  of  Court  and 
Tremont  Streets,  or,  possibly,  at  the  junction 
of  Tremont  and  Dartmouth  Streets.  All 
these  names  appear  in  my  memoranda. 
Boston  people  should  have  had  a  hand  in 
this  business,  I  said  to  myself.  It  was  on 
Federal  Street  (so  much  I  put  down)  that 
I  saw  my  only  Tennessee  rose-breasted  gros- 
beak. He,  or  rather  she,  was  the  most 
interesting  bird  of  the  forenoon,  and  matched 


120     MOBNING  IN  THE  NOBTH  WOODS. 

the  one  Baltimore  oriole  seen  at  Chicka- 
mauga.  I  heard  the  familiar  dick,  as  of 
rusty  shears,  and  straightway  took  chase. 
For  some  minutes  my  search  was  in  vain, 
and  once  I  feared  I  had  been  fooled.  A  bird 
flew  out  of  the  right  tree,  as  I  thought,  but 
showed  yellow,  and  the  next  moment  set  up 
the  dippiticlip  call  of  the  summer  tanager. 
Could  that  bird  have  also  a  note  like  the 
rose  -  breast's  ?  It  was  not  impossible,  of 
course,  for  one  does  not  exhaust  the  vocabu- 
lary of  a  bird  in  a  month's  acquaintance ;  but 
I  could  not  think  it  likely,  thick  as  tanagers 
had  been  about  me ;  and  soon  the  dich  was 
repeated,  and  this  time  I  put  my  eye  on  its 
author,  —  a  feminine  rose-breast.  Perhaps  it 
was  nothing  more  than  an  accident  that  she 
was  my  only  specimen ;  but  so  showy  a  bird, 
with  so  lovely  a  song  and  so  distinctive  a 
signal,  could  hardly  have  escaped  notice  had 
it  been  in  any  degree  common. 

Wood  thrushes  sang  on  all  sides.  They 
had  need  to  be  abundant  and  free-hearted, 
since  they  stand  in  that  region  for  the  whole 
thrush  family.  Blue  golden-winged  war- 
blers, too,  were  generously  distributed,  and, 
as  happens  to  me  now  and  then  in  Massa- 


MOBNING  m   THE  NOETH  WOODS.      121 

chusetts,  I  found  one  with  a  song  so  absurdly 
peculiar  that  I  spent  some  time  in  making 
sure  of  its  author.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
this  tendency  to  individual  variation  will 
persist  'and  increase  in  the  case  of  this  spe- 
cies till  something  more  melodious  than  its 
present  sibilant  monotony  is  evolved;  till 
beauty  and  art  are  mated,  as  they  ought  to 
be.  Who  would  not  love  to  hear  the  music 
of  all  our  birds  a  few  millions  of  years 
hence?  What  a  singer  the  hermit  thrush 
will  be,  for  example,  when  his  tune  is  equal 
to  his  voice !  Indigo-birds,  white-eyed  vireos 
and  prairie  warblers  abounded.  As  for  the 
chats,  they  saluted  me  on  the  right  and  on 
the  left,  till  I  said,  "  Chats,  Chattanooga," 
and  felt  almost  as  if  Nature  had  perpetrated 
a  huge  fantastic  pun  on  her  own  account. 
If  I  could  have  had  the  ear  of  the  enterpris- 
ing owners  of  this  embryo  suburb,  —  a  syn- 
dicate, I  dare  say  they  call  themselves, — 
I  would  have  suggested  to  them  to  name  it 
«  Chat  City." 

I  wandered  carelessly  about,  now  following 
a  bird  over  a  romided  hill  (one,  I  remember, 
was  covered  literally  from  end  to  end  with 
the  common  brake,  —  Fteris,  —  which  will 


122     MORNING  IN  THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

give  the  reader  an  idea  of  its  sterility),  now 
keeping  to  the  road.  In  such  a  soil  flowers 
were  naturally  scarce;  but  I  noticed  hous- 
tonia,  phlox,  hieracium,  senecio,  pentstemon, 
and  specularia.  Like  the  brake,  the  names 
are  suggestive  of  barrenness.  The  senecio 
(ragwort),  a  species  with  finely  cut  leaves 
(^S.  millefolium'),  was  first  seen  on  Mission- 
ary Kidge.  There,  as  here,  it  had  a  strange, 
misplaced  appearance  in  my  eyes,  looking 
much  like  our  familiar  S.  aureus,  but  grow- 
ing in  dry  woods ! 

So  the  morning  passed.  The  hours  were 
far  too  brief,  and  I  would  have  stretched 
them  into  the  afternoon,  but  that  my  trunk 
was  packed  for  Walden's  Kidge.  It  was 
necessary  to  think  of  getting  back  to  the 
city,  and  I  took  a  quicker  pace.  Two  more 
Kentucky  warblers  detained  me  for  a  mo- 
ment; a  quail  sprang  up  from  under  my 
feet ;  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  way  an 
oven-bird  sang  —  the  only  one  found  in  the 
valley.  Then  I  came  to  the  car-track  ;  but 
somehow  things  wore  an  unexpected  look, 
and  a  preacher,  very  black,  solemn,  and 
shiny,  gave  me  to  understand,  in  answer  to 
a  question,  that   the   city  lay  not  where  I 


MOENING  IN   THE  NOBTR   WOODS.      123 

thouglit,  but  in  an  opposite  direction.  In- 
stead of  making  a  circuit  I  had  cut  straight 
across  the  country  (an  unusual  form  of 
bewilderment),  and  had  come  to  another 
railway.  But  no  harm  was  done.  In  that 
corner  of  the  world  all  roads  lead  to  Chatta- 
nooga. 


A  WEEK  ON  WALDEN'S   RIDGE. 


Throughout  my  stay  in  Chattanooga  I 
looked  often  and  with  desire  at  a  long,  flat- 
topped,  perpendicular-sided,  densely  wooded 
mountain,  beyond  the  Tennessee  River.  Its 
name  was  Walden's  Ridge,  I  was  told ;  the 
top  of  it  was  eighty  miles  long  and  ten  or 
twelve  miles  wide  ;  if  I  wanted  a  bit  of  wild 
country,  that  was  the  place  for  me.  Was  it 
accessible?  I  asked.  And  was  there  any 
reasonable  way  of  living  there  ?  Oh  yes ; 
carriages  ran  every  afternoon  from  the  city, 
and  there  were  several  small  hotels  on  the 
mountain.  So  it  happened  that  I  went  to 
Walden's  Ridge  for  my  last  week  in  Ten- 
nessee, and  have  ever  since  thanked  my 
stars  —  as  New  England  Christians  used  to 
say,  in  my  boyhood  —  for  giving  me  the 
good  wine  at  the  end  of  the  feast. 

The  wine,  it  is  true,  was  a  little  too  freely 
watered.  I  went  up  the  mountain  in  a  rain, 
and  came  down  again  in  a  rain,  and  of  the 


A   WEEK  ON  WALDEN'S  RIDGE.     125 

seven  intervening  days  five  were  showery. 
The  showers,  mostly  with  thunder  and 
lightning,  were  of  the  sort  that  make  an 
umbrella  ridiculous,  and  my  jaunts,  as  a 
rule,  took  me  far  from  shelter.  Yet  I  had 
little  to  complain  of.  Now  and  then  I  was 
put  to  my  trumps,  as  it  were  ;  my  walk  was 
sometimes  grievously  abbreviated,  and  my 
pace  uncomfortably  hurried,  but  by  one 
happy  accident  and  another  I  always  escaped 
a  drenching.  "Worse  than  the  water  that 
fell  —  worse,  and  not  to  be  escaped,  even  by 
accident  —  was  that  which  saturated  the 
atmosphere,  making  every  day  a  dogday,  and 
the  week  a  seven-day  sweat.  And  then,  as 
if  to  even  the  account,  on  the  last  night  of 
my  stay  I  was  kept  awake  for  hours  shiver- 
ing with  cold ;  and  in  the  morning,  after 
putting  on  all  the  clothing  I  could  wear, 
and  breakfasting  in  a  snowstorm,  I  rode 
down  the  mountain  in  a  state  suggestive  of 
approaching  congelation.  "  My  feet  are 
frozen,  I  know  they  are,"  said  the  lady  who 
sat  beside  me  in  the  wagon ;  but  she  was 
mistaken. 

This   sudden    drop   in    the    temperature 
seemed  to  be  a  trial  even   to   the   natives. 


126     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

As  we  drove  into  Chattanooga,  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  smile  at  tlie  pinched  and 
woebegone  aj^pearance  of  the  colored  people. 
What  had  they  to  do  with  weather  that 
makes  a  man  hurry  ?  And  the  next  morn- 
ing, when  an  enterprising,  bright-faced  white 
boy  ran  up  to  me  with  a  "  '  Times,'  sir  ? 
Have  a  '  Times '  ?  "  I  fear  he  quite  misap- 
prehended the  more  or  less  quizzical  expres- 
sion which  I  am  sure  came  into  my  face.  I 
was  looking  at  his  black  woolen  mittens,  and 
thinking  how  well  he  was  mothered.  It  was 
the  19th  of  May ;  for  at  least  three  weeks, 
to  my  own  knowledge,  the  city  had  been 
sweltering  under  the  hottest  of  midsummer 
heats,  —  94°  in  the  shade,  for  example  ;  and 
now,  mittens  and  overcoats  ! 

I  should  be  sorry  to  exaggerate,  or  leave 
a  false  impression.  In  this  day  of  literary 
conscientiousness,  when  writers  of  fiction 
itself  are  truth-tellers  first,  and  story-tellers 
afterwards,  —  if  at  all,  —  it  behooves  mere 
tourists  and  naturalists  to  speak  as  under 
oath.  Be  it  confessed,  then,  that  the  fore- 
going paragraphs,  though  true  in  every 
word,  are  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously.  If 
the    weather,   "  the    dramatic    element    in 


A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE.      127 

scenery/'  happened  not  to  suit  the  conven- 
ience of  a  naturally  selfish  man,  now  ten 
times  more  selfish  than  usual  —  as  is  the 
rule  —  because  he  was  on  his  annual  vaca- 
tion, it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  essentially 
bad.  The  rains  were  needed,  the  heat  was 
to  have  been  expected,  and  the  cold,  un- 
seasonable and  exceptional,  was  not  peculiar 
to  Tennessee.  As  for  the  snow,  it  was  no 
more  than  I  have  seen  before  now,  even  in 
Massachusetts,  —  a  week  or  two  earlier  in 
the  month ;  and  it  lent  such  a  glory  to  the 
higher  Alleghanies,  as  we  passed  them  on 
our  way  homeward,  that  I  might  cheerfully 
have  lain  shiverino;  for  two  nio^hts  in  that 
unplastered  bedroom,  with  its  window  that 
no  man  could  shut,  rather  than  miss  the 
spectacle.  Eastern  Tennessee,  I  have  no 
doubt,  is  a  most  salubrious  country ;  prop- 
erly recommended  by  the  medical  fraternity 
as  a  refuge  for  consumptive  patients.  If  to 
me  its  meteorological  fluctuations  seemed 
surprisingly  wide  and  sudden,  it  was  per- 
haps because  I  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
equable  climate  of  New  England.  It  would 
be  unfair  to  judge  the  world  in  general  by 
that  favored  spot. 


128     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

The  road  up  the  mountain 
road,"  as  it  is  called  —  is  a  notable  piece  of 
work,  done,  I  was  told,  by  the  county  chain- 
gangs.  The  pleasure  of  the  ascent,  which 
naturally  would  have  been  great,  was  badly 
diminished  by  the  rain,  which  made  it  neces- 
sary to  keep  the  sides  of  the  wagon  down ; 
but  I  was  fortunate  in  my  driver.  At  first 
he  seemed  a  stolid,  uncommunicative  body, 
and  when  we  came  to  the  river  I  made  sure 
he  could  not  read.  As  we  'drove  upon  the 
bridge,  where  straight  before  his  eyes  was  a 
sign  forbidding  any  one  to  drive  or  ride  over 
the  bridge  at  a  pace  faster  than  a  walk,  un- 
der a  penalty  of  five  dollars  for  each  offense, 
he  whipped  up  his  horse  and  his  mule  (the 
mule  the  better  horse  of  the  two),  and  they 
struck  into  a  trot.  Halfway  across  we  met 
another  wagon,  and  its  driver  too  had  let 
his  horses  out.  Illiteracy  must  be  pretty 
common  in  these  parts,  I  said  to  myself. 
But  whatever  my  driver's  educational  defi- 
ciencies, it  did  not  take  long  to  discover  that 
in  his  own  line  he  was  a  master.  He  could 
hit  the  ear  of  his  mule  with  the  end  of  his 
whip  with  a  precision  that  was  almost  start- 
ling.    In   fact,    it   tvas    startling  —  to   the 


A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE.     129 

mule.  For  my  own  part,  as  often  as  he 
drew  back  his  hand  and  let  fly  the  lash,  my 
eye  was  glued  to  the  mule's  right  ear  in 
spite  of  myself.  Had  my  own  ears  been  en- 
dowed with  life  and  motion,  instead  of  fast- 
ened to  my  head  like  blocks  of  wood,  I  think 
they  too  would  have  twitched.  I  wondered 
how  long  the  man  had  practiced  his  art. 
He  appeared  to  be  not  more  than  forty-five 
years  old.  Perhaps  he  came  of  a  race  of 
drivers,  and  so  began  life  with  some  heredi- 
tary advantages.  At  all  events,  he  was  a 
specialist,  with  the  specialist's  motto,  "  This 
one  thing  I  do." 

We  were  hardly  off  the  bridge  and  in  the 
country  before  I  began  plying  him  with 
questions  about  this  and  that,  especially  the 
wayside  trees.  He  answered  promptly  and 
succinctly,  and  turned  out  to  be  a  man  who 
had  kept  his  eyes  open,  and,  better  still, 
knew  how  to  say,  "No,  suh,"  as  well  as, 
"Yes,  suh."  (There  is  no  mark  in  the 
dictionaries  to  indicate  the  percussive  brevity 
of  the  vowel  sound  in  "suh"  as  he  pro- 
nounced it.)  The  big  tupelo  he  recognized 
as  the  "  black-gum."  "  But  is  n't  it  ever 
called    'sour -gum'?"      "No,   suh."      He 


130     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

knew  but  one  kind  of  tupelo,  as  he  knew 
but  one  kind  of  "  ellum."  There  were  many- 
kinds  of  oaks,  some  of  which  he  named  as 
we  passed  them.  This  botanical  catechism 
presently  waked  up  the  only  other  passenger 
in  the  wagon,  a  modest  girl  of  ten  or  twelve 
years.  She  too,  it  appeared,  had  some  ac- 
quaintance with  trees.  I  had  asked  the 
driver  if  there  were  no  long-leaved  pines 
hereabout.  "  No,  suh,"  he  said.  "  But  I 
think  I  saw  some  at  Chickamauga  the  other 
day,"  I  ventured.  (It  was  the  only  place  I 
did  see  them,  as  well  as  I  remember.)  "  Yes, 
sir,"  put  in  the  girl,  "  there  are  a  good  many 
there."  "  Good  for  you  !  "  I  was  ready  to 
say.  It  was  a  pretty  rare  schoolgirl  who, 
after  visiting  a  battlefield,  could  tell  what 
kind  of  pines  grow  on  it.  Persimmons? 
Yes,  indeed,  the  girl  had  eaten  them. 
There  was  a  tree  by  the  fence.  Had  I  never 
eaten  them  ?  She  seemed  to  pity  me  when 
I  said  "  No,"  but  I  fancied  she  would  have 
preferred  to  see  me  begin  with  one  a  little 
short  of  ripe. 

As  for  the  birds  of  Walden's  Ridge,  the 
driver  said,  there  were  partridges,  pheasants, 
and  turkeys.     He   had   seen   ravens,   also, 


A   WEEK  ON    WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      131 

but  only  in  winter,  he  thought,  and  never 
in  flocks.  His  brother  had  once  shot  one. 
About  smaller  birds  he  could  not  profess 
to  speak.  By  and  by  he  stopped  the  car- 
riage. "  There 's  a  bird  now,"  he  said, 
pointing  with  his  whip.  "  What  do  you 
call  that?"  It  was  a  summer  tanager,  I 
told  him,  or  summer  redbird.  Did  he  know 
another  redbird,  with  black  wings  and  tail  ? 
Yes,  he  had  seen  it ;  that  was  the  male,  and 
this  all-red  one  was  the  female.  Oh  no,  I 
explained ;  the  birds  were  of  different  species, 
and  the  females  in  both  cases  were  yellow. 
He  did  not  insist,  —  it  was  a  case  of  a 
driver  and  his  fare ;  but  he  had  always 
been  told  so,  he  said,  and  I  do  not  flatter 
myself  that  I  convinced  him  to  the  contrary. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  that  one  man  can  be  so 
much  wiser  than  everybody  else.  A  Massa- 
chusetts farmer  once  asked  me,  I  remember, 
if  the  night-hawk  and  the  whippoorwill  were 
male  and  female  of  the  same  bird.  I  an- 
swered, of  course,  that  they  were  not,  and 
gave,  as  I  thought,  abundant  reason  why 
such  a  thing  could  not  be  possible.  But 
I  spoke  as  a  scribe.  "Well,"  remarked 
the  farmer,  when  I  had  finished  my  story, 


132     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

"  some  folks  say  they  be,  but  I  guess  they 
ain'tJ' 

With  such  converse,  then,  we  beguiled 
the  climb  to  the  "  Brow,"  —  the  top  of  the 
cliffs  which  rim  the  summit  of  the  momitain, 
and  give  it  from  below  a  fortified  look,  — 
and  at  last,  after  an  hour's  further  drive 
through  the  dripping  woods,  came  to  the 
hotel  at  which  I  was  to  put  up  —  or  with 
which  I  was  to  put  up  —  during  my  stay  on 
the  Kidge. 

I  had  hardly  taken  the  road,  the  next 
morning,  impatient  to  see  what  this  little 
world  on  a  mountain  top  was  like,  before  I 
came  to  a  lovely  brook  making  its  devious 
course  among  big  boulders  with  much  pleas- 
ant gurgling,  in  the  shadow  of  mountain 
laurel  and  white  azalea,  —  a  place  highly 
characteristic  of  Walden's  Ridge,  as  I  was 
afterwards  to  learn.  Just  now,  naturally, 
there  was  no  stopping  so  near  home,  though 
a  Kentucky  warbler,  with  his  cool,  liquid 
song,  did  his  best  to  beguile  me  ;  and  I  kept 
on  my  way,  past  a  few  houses,  a  tiny  box  of 
a  post-office,  a  rude  church,  and  a  few  more 
houses,  till  just  beyond  the  last  one  the  road 
dropped  into  the  forest  again,  as  if  for  good. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  EIDGE.      133 

And  there,  all  at  once  I  seemed  to  be 
in  New  Hampshire.  The  land  fell  away 
sharply,  and  at  one  particular  point,  through 
a  vista,  the  forest  could  be  seen  sloping  down 
on  either  side  to  the  gap,  beyond  which, 
miles  away,  loomed  a  hill,  and  then,  far,  far 
in  the  distance,  high  mountains  dim  with 
haze.  It  was  like  a  note  of  sublimity  in  a 
poem  that  till  now  had  been  only  beautiful. 
From  the  bottom  of  the  valley  came  a 
sound  of  running  water,  and  between  me 
and  the  invisible  stream  a  chorus  of  olive- 
backed  thrushes  were  singing,  —  the  same 
simple  and  hearty  strains  that,  in  June  and 
July,  echo  all  day  long  through  the  woods 
of  the  Crawford  Notch.  The  birds  were  on 
their  way  from  the  far  South,  and  were 
happy  to  find  themselves  in  so  homelike  a 
place.  Then,  suddenly,  amid  the  golden 
voices  of  the  thrushes,  I  caught  the  wiry 
notes  of  a  warbler.  They  came  from  the 
treetops  in  the  valley,  and  —  so  I  prided 
myself  upon  guessing  —  belonged  to  a  ceru- 
lean warbler,  a  bird  of  which  I  had  seen  my 
first  and  only  specimen  a  week  before,  on 
Lookout  Mountain.  Down  the  steep  hill- 
side I  scrambled,  —  New  Hampshire  clean 


134     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

forgotten,  —  and  was  just  bringing  my  glass 
into  play  when  the  fellow  took  wing,  and 
began  singing  at  the  very  point  I  bad  just 
left.  I  hastened  back ;  he  flew  again,  far- 
ther up  the  hill,  and  again  I  put  myself  out 
of  breath  with  pursuing  him.  Again  and 
again  he  sang,  now  in  this  tree,  now  in  that, 
but  there  was  no  getting  sight  of  him.  The 
trees  should  have  been  shorter,  or  the  bird 
larger.  Straight  upward  I  gazed,  till  the 
muscles  of  my  neck  cried  for  mercy.  At 
last  I  saw  him,  flitting  amid  the  dense  foli- 
age, but  so  far  above  me,  and  so  exactly 
between  me  and  the  sun,  that  I  might  as 
well  not  have  seen  him  at  all. 

It  was  a  foolish  half-hour.  The  bird,  as 
I  afterwards  discovered,  was  nothing  but  a 
blue  yellow-back,  with  an  original  twist  to 
his  song.  In  Massachusetts,  I  should  not 
have  listened  to  it  twice,  but  on  new  hunt- 
ing-grounds a  man  is  bound  to  look  for  new 
game  ;  else  what  would  be  the  use  of  travel- 
ing ?  It  was  a  foolish  half -hour,  I  say ;  but 
I  wish  some  moralist  would  explain,  in  a 
manner  not  inconsistent  with  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  how  it  happens  that  foolish 
haK-hours    are    commonly   so    much   more 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.      135 

enjoyable  at  the  time,  and  so  much  pleas- 
anter  in  the  retrospect,  than  many  that  are 
more  reasonably  employed. 

I  swallowed  my  disappointment,  and 
presently  forgot  it,  for  at  the  first  turn  in 
the  road  I  found  myself  following  the 
course  of  a  brook  or  creek,  between  which 
and  myself  was  a  dense  thicket  of  mountain 
laurel  and  rhododendron,  with  trees  and 
other  shrubs  intermingled.  The  laurel  was 
already  in  full  bloom,  while  the  rhododen- 
drons held  aloft  clusters  of  gorgeous  rose- 
purple  buds,  a  few  of  which,  the  middle  ones 
of  the  cluster,  were  just  bursting  into  flower. 
Here  was  beauty  of  a  new  order,  —  such 
wealth  and  splendor  of  color  in  surroundings 
so  romantic.  And  the  place,  besides,  was 
alive  with  singing  birds  :  hooded  warblers, 
Kentucky  warblers,  a  Canadian  warbler,  a 
black-throated  blue,  a  black-throated  green, 
a  blue  yellow-back,  scarlet  tanagers,  wood 
pewees,  wood  thrushes,  a  field  sparrow  (on 
the  hillside  beyond)  a  cardinal,  a  chat,  a 
bunch  of  white-throated  sparrows,  and  who 
could  tell  what  else?  It  was  an  exciting 
moment.  Luckily,  a  man  can  look  and 
listen   both   at  once.     Here  was   a  fringe- 


136     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

tree,  a  noble  specimen,  hung  with  creamy- 
white  plumes  ;  here  was  a  magnolia,  with 
big  leaves  and  big  flowers  ;  and  here  was 
a  flowering  dogwood,  not  to  be  put  out  of 
countenance  in  any  company ;  but  espe- 
cially, here  were  the  rhododendrons  !  And 
all  the  while,  deep  in  the  thickest  of  the 
bushes,  some  unknown  bird  was  singing  a 
strange,  breathless  jumble  of  a  song,  note 
tripping  over  note,  —  like  an  eager  church- 
man with  his  responses,  I  kept  saying  to 
myself,  with  no  thought  of  disrespect  to 
either  party.  It  cost  me  a  long  vigil  and 
much  patient  coaxing  to  make  the  fellow 
out,  and  he  proved  to  be  merely  a  Wilson's 
blackcap,  after  all;  but  he  was  the  only 
bird  of  his  kind  that  I  saw  in  Tennessee. 

On  this  first  visit  I  did  not  get  far  beyond 
the  creek,  through  the  bed  of  which  the 
road  runs,  with  a  single  log  for  foot-passen- 
gers. I  had  spent  at  least  an  hour  in  going 
a  hundred  rods,  and  it  was  already  drawing 
near  dinner  time.  But  I  returned  to  the 
spot  that  very  afternoon,  and  half  a  dozen 
times  afterward.  So  poor  a  traveler  am 
I,  so  ill  fitted  to  explore  a  new  country. 
Whenever    nothing   in  particular    offered 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.     137 

itself,  why,  it  was  always  pretty  down  at 
Falling  Water  Creek.  There  I  saw  the 
rhododendrons  come  into  exuberant  bloom, 
and  there  I  oftenest  see  them  in  memory, 
though  I  found  them  elsewhere  in  greater 
abundance,  and  in  a  setting  even  more 
romantic. 

More  romantic,  perhaps,  but  hardly  more 
beautiful.  I  remember,  just  beyond  the 
creek,  a  bank  where  sweet  bush  ( Calycan- 
thus^,  wild  ginger  (^AsaimTii),  rhododendron, 
laurel,  and  plenty  of  trailing  arbutus  (the 
last  now  out  of  flower)  were  growing  side 
by  side,  —  a  rare  combination  of  beauty 
and  fragrance.  And  within  a  few  rods  of 
the  same  spot  I  sat  down  more  than  once  to 
take  a  long  look  at  a  cross-vine  covering  a 
dead  hemlock.  The  branches  of  the  tree, 
shortening  regularly  to  the  top,  were  draped 
heavily  with  gray  lichens,  while  the  vine, 
keeping  mostly  near  the  trunk  and  climbing 
clean  to  the  tip,  —  fifty  feet  or  more,  as  I 
thought,  — was  hung  throughout  with  large, 
orange-red,  gold-lined  bells.  Their  numbers 
were  past  guessing.  Here  and  there  a 
spray  of  them  swung  lightly  from  the  end  of 
a  branch,  as  if  inviting  the  breeze  to  lend 


138     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

them  motion  and  a  voice.  The  sight  was 
worth  going  miles  to  see,  and  yet  I  passed 
it  three  times  before  it  caught  my  eye,  so 
full  were  the  woods  of  things  to  look  at. 
After  all,  is  it  a  poor  traveler  who  turns 
again  and  again  into  the  same  path? 
Whether  is  better,  to  read  two  good  books 
once,  or  one  good  book  twice  ? 

A  favorite  shorter  walk,  at  odd  minutes, 
—  before  breakfast  and  between  showers,  — 
was  through  the  woods  for  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  to  a  small  clearing  and  a  cabin.  On  a 
Sunday  afternoon  I  ventured  to  pass  the 
gate  and  make  a  call  upon  my  neighbors. 
The  doors  of  the  house  stood  open,  but  a 
oflance  inside  showed  that  there  was  no  one 
there,  and  I  walked  round  it,  inspecting  the 
garden,  —  corn,  beans,  and  potatoes  coming 
on,  —  till,  just  as  I  was  ready  to  turn  back 
into  the  woods,  I  descried  a  man  and  woman 
on  the  hillside  not  far  away ;  the  man  lead- 
ing a  mule,  and  the  woman  picking  straw- 
berries. At  sight  of  a  stranger  the  woman 
fell  behind,  but  the  man  kept  on  to  the 
house,  greeted  me  politely,  and  invited  me 
to  be  seated  under  the  hemlock,  where  two 
chairs   were   already   placed.     After    tying 


A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIBGE,      139 

the  mule  he  took  the  other  chair,  and  we  fell 
into  talk  about  the  weather,  the  crops,  and 
things  in  general.  When  the  wife  finally- 
appeared,  I  rose,  of  course ;  but  she  went  on 
in  silence  and  entered  the  house,  while  the 
husband  said,  "  Oh,  keep  your  seat."  We 
continued  our  conversation  till  the  rain  be- 
gan to  fall.  Then  we  picked  up  our  chairs 
and  followed  the  woman  inside.  She  sat  in 
the  middle  of  the  room  (young,  pretty,  newly 
married,  and  Sunday -dressed),  but  never 
once  opened  her  lips.  Her  behavior  was  in 
strict  accordance  with  local  etiquette,  I  was 
afterward  assured  (as  if  all  etiquette  were 
not  local) ;  but  though  I  admire  feminine 
modesty  as  much  as  any  man,  I  cannot  say 
that  I  found  this  particular  manifestation  of 
it  altogether  to  my  liking.  Silence  is  golden, 
no  doubt,  and  gold  is  more  precious  than 
silver,  but  in  cases  of  this  figurative  sort  I 
profess  myself  a  bimetallist.  A  little  silver, 
I  say ;  enough  for  small  change,  at  any  rate ; 
and  if  we  can  have  a  pretty  free  coinage, 
why,  so  much  the  better,  though  as  to  that, 
it  must  be  admitted,  a  good  deal  depends 
upon  the  "  image  and  superscription."  How- 
ever, my  hostess   followed  her  lights,  and 


140     A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE. 

reserved  her  voice  —  soft  and  musical  let  us 
hope  —  for  her  husband's  ear. 

They  had  not  lived  in  the  house  very  long, 
he  told  me,  and  he  did  not  know  how  many 
years  the  land  had  been  cleared.  There 
was  a  fair  amount  of  game  in  the  woods,  — 
turkeys,  squirrels,  pheasants,  and  so  on,  — 
and  in  winter  the  men  did  considerable 
hunting.  Formerly  there  were  a  good  many 
deer,  but  they  had  been  pretty  well  killed 
off.  Turkeys  still  held  out.  They  were 
gobbling  now.  His  father  had  been  trying 
for  two  or  three  weeks,  off  and  on,  to  shoot 
a  certain  old  fellow  who  had  several  hens 
with  him  down  in  the  valley.  His  father 
could  call  with  his  mouth  better  than  with 
any  "  caller,"  but  so  far  the  bird  had  been 
too  sharp  for  him.  The  son  laughed  good- 
naturedly  when  I  confessed  to  an  unsports- 
manlike sympathy  with  the  gobbler. 

The  cabin,  built  of  hewn  logs,  with  clay 
in  the  chinks,  was  neatly  furnished,  with 
beds  in  two  corners  of  the  one  room,  a  stone 
chimney,  two  doors  directly  opposite  each 
other,  and  no  window.  The  doors,  it  is 
miderstood,  are  always  to  be  open,  for  venti- 
lation and  light.     Such  is  the  custom ;  and 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      141 

custom  is  nowhere  more  powerful  than  in 
small  rustic  communities.  If  a  native,  led 
away  by  his  wife,  perhaps,  puts  a  window 
into  his  new  cabin,  the  neighbors  say,  "  Oh, 
he  is  building  a  glass  house,  is  n't  he?" 
It  must  be  an  effeminate  woman,  they  think, 
who  cannot  do  her  cooking  and  sewing  by 
the  light  of  the  door.  None  the  less,  in  a 
climate  where  snow  is  possible  in  the  middle 
of  May,  such  a  Spartan  arrangement  must 
sometimes  be  found  a  bit  uncomfortable  by 
persons  not  to  the  manner  born.  A  preacher 
confided  to  me  that  in  his  pastoral  calls  he 
had  once  or  twice  made  bold  to  push  to  a 
door  directly  at  his  back,  when  the  wind 
was  cold ;  but  the  innovation  was  ill  received, 
and  the  inmates  of  the  house,  doubtless 
without  wishing  to  hurt  their  minister's  feel- 
ings, —  since  he  had  meant  no  harm,  to  be 
sure,  but  was  simply  unused  to  the  ways  of 
the  world,  —  speedily  found  some  excuse  for 
rectifying  his  mistake.  Probably  there  is 
no  corner  of  the  world  where  the  question 
of  fresh  air  and  draughts  is  not  available 
for  purposes  of  moral  discipline. 

Beside  the  path  to  the  cabin,  on  the  13th 
of  May,  was  a  gray-cheeked  thrush,  a  very 


142     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

gray  specimen,  sitting  motionless  in  the  best 
of  lights.  "  Look  at  me,"  he  seemed  to  say. 
"I  am  no  olive-back.  My  cheeks  are  not 
sallow."  On  the  same  day,  here  and  in 
another  place,  I  saw  white-throated  sparrows. 
Their  presence  at  this  late  hour  was  a  great 
surprise,  and  suggested  the  possibility  of 
their  breeding  somewhere  in  the  Carolina 
mountains,  though  I  am  not  aware  that  such 
an  occurrence  has  ever  been  recorded.  An- 
other recollection  of  this  path  is  of  a  snow- 
white  milkweed  (^Asclepias  variegatd)^  — 
white  with  the  merest  touch  of  purple  to  set 
it  off,  —  for  the  downright  elegance  of  which 
I  was  not  in  the  least  prepared.  The  queen 
of  all  milkweeds,  surely. 

After  nightfall  the  air  grew  loud  with  the 
cries  of  batrachians  and  insects,  an  interest- 
ing and  novel  chorus.  On  my  first  evening 
at  the  hotel  I  was  loitering  up  the  road,  with 
frequent  auditory  pauses,  thinking  how  full 
the  world  is  of  unseen  creatures  which  find 
their  day  only  after  the  sun  goes  down,  when 
in  a  woody  spot  I  heard  behind  me  a  sound 
of  footsteps.  A  woman  was  close  at  my 
heels,  fetching  a  pail  of  water  from  the 
spring.     I  remarked  upon  the  many  voices. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      143 

She  answered  pleasantly.  It  was  the  big 
frogs  that  I  heard,  she  reckoned. 

"Do  you  have  whippoorwills  here?"  I 
asked. 

"  Plenty  of  'em,"  she  answered,  "  plenty 
of  'em." 

"  Do  you  hear  them  right  along  the  road  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir;  oh  yes." 

We  had  gone  hardly  a  rod  further  before 
we  exclaimed  in  the  same  breath,  "  There  is 
one  now ! " 

I  inquired  if  there  was  another  bird  here, 
something  like  the  whippoorwill,  meaning 
the  chuck-will's-widow.  But  she  said  no; 
she  knew  of  but  one. 

"How  early  does  the  whippoorwill  get 
here?"  said  I. 

"  Pretty  early,"  she  answered. 

"  By  the  first  of  April,  should  you  say  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir,  I  think  about  then.  I  know 
the  timber  is  just  beginning  to  put  out  when 
they  begin  to  holler." 

This  mannerly  treatment  of  a  stranger 
was  more  Christian-like  than  the  stately 
silence  of  my  lady  of  the  cabin,  it  seemed  to 
me.  I  liked  it  better,  at  all  events.  I  had 
learned  nothing,  perhaps ;  but  unless  a  man 


144     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

is  far  gone  in  philosophy  he  need  not  feel 
bound  to  increase  in  wisdom  every  time  a 
neighbor  speaks  to  him ;  and  anyhow,  that 
expression  about  the  "putting  out  of  the 
timber"  had  given  me  pleasure.  Hearing 
it  thus  was  better  than  finding  it  upon  a 
page  of  Stevenson,  or  some  other  author 
whose  business  in  life  is  the  picking  of  right 
words.  Let  us  have  some  silver,  I  repeat. 
I  am  ready  to  believe,  what  I  have  some- 
where read,  that  men  will  have  to  give 
account  not  only  for  every  idle  word,  but 
for  every  idle  silence. 

The  summit  of  the  Ridge,  as  soon  as  one 
leaves  its  precij^itous  rocky  edge,  —  the 
Brow,  so  called,  —  is  simply  an  indefinite 
expanse  of  gently  rolling  country,  thin-soiled, 
but  well  watered,  and  covered  with  fine  open 
woods,  rambling  through  which  the  visitor 
finds  little  to  remind  him  of  his  elevation 
above  the  world.  I  heard  a  resident  speak 
of  going  to  the  "  top  of  the  mountain,"  how- 
ever, and  on  inquiry  learned  that  a  certain 
rocky  eminence,  two  miles,  more  or  less, 
from  Fairmount  (the  little  "settlement" 
where  I  was  staying),  went  by  that  name, 
and  was  supposed  to  be  the  highest  point  of 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.      145 

the  Riclge.  My  informant  kindly  made  me  a 
rough  map  of  the  way  thither,  and  one  morn- 
ino-  I  set  out  in  that  direction.  It  would  be 
shameful  to  live  for  a  week  on  the  "  summit " 
of  a  mountain,  and  not  once  go  to  the  "  top." 
The  glory  of  Walden's  Ridge,  as  com- 
pared with  Lookout  Mountain,  —  so  the 
dwellers  there  say,  —  is  its  streams  and 
springs ;  and  my  morning  path  soon  brought 
me  to  the  usual  rocky  brook  bordered  with 
mountain  laurel,  holly,  and  hemlock.  To 
my  New  England  eyes  it  was  an  odd  circum- 
stance, the  hemlocks  growing  always  along 
the  creeks  in  the  valley  bottoms.  Beyond 
this  point  I  passed  an  abandoned  cabin,  — 
no  other  house  in  sight,  —  and  by  and  by 
a  second  one,  near  which,  in  the  garden 
(better  worth  preserving  than  the  house,  it 
appeared),  a  woman  and  two  children  were 
at  work.  Yes,  the  woman  said,  I  was  on  the 
right  path.  I  had  only  to  keep  a  straight 
course,  and  I  should  bring  up  at  the  "  top 
of  the  mountain."  A  little  farther,  and  my 
spirits  rose  at  the  sight  of  a  circular,  sedgy, 
woodland  pond,  such  a  place  as  I  had  not 
seen  in  all  this  Chattanooga  country.  It 
ought  to  yield  something  new   for  my  local 


146     A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE. 

ornithological  list,  which  up  to  this  time  in- 
cluded ninety  species,  and  not  one  of  them 
a  water-bird.  I  did  my  best,  beating  round 
the  edge  and  "  squeaking,"  but  startled  no- 
thing rarer  than  a  hooded  warbler  and  a 
cardinal  grosbeak. 

Next  I  traversed  a  long  stretch  of  un- 
broken oak  woods,  with  single  tall  pines  in- 
terspersed ;  and  then  all  at  once  the  path 
turned  to  the  right,  and  ran  obliquely  down- 
hill to  a  clearing  in  which  stood  a  house,  — 
not  a  cabin,  —  with  a  garden,  orchard  trees, 
and  beehives.  This  should  be  the  German 
shoemaker's,  I  thought,  looking  at  my  map. 
If  so,  I  was  pretty  near  the  top,  though 
otherwise  there  was  no  sign  of  it ;  and  if  I 
had  made  any  considerable  ascent,  it  had 
been  as  children  increase  in  stature,  —  and 
as  the  good  increase  in  goodness,  —  uncon- 
sciously. A  woman  of  some  years  was  in 
the  garden,  and  at  my  approach  came  up 
to  the  fence,  —  a  round  -  faced,  motherly 
body.  Yes,  the  top  of  the  mountain  was 
just  beyond.     I  could  not  miss  it. 

"  You  do  not  live  here  ?  "  she  asked. 

No,  I  explained  ;  I  was  a  stranger  on  the 
Eidge,  —  a  stranger  from  Boston. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.      147 

"  From  Washington  ?  " 

"  No,  from  Boston." 

"  Oh  !  from  Boston !  —  Massachusetts !  — 
Oh-h-h ! " 

She  would  go  part  way  with  me,  she  said, 
lest  I  should  miss  the  path.  Perhaps  she 
wished  to  show  some  special  hospitality  to 
a  man  from  Massachusetts  ;  or  possibly  she 
thought  I  must  be  more  in  danger  of  getting 
bewildered,  being  so  far  from  home.  But 
I  could  not  think  of  troubling  her.  Was 
there  a  spring  near  by,  where  I  could  drink? 

"I  have  water  in  the  house,"  she  an- 
swered. 

"  But  is  n't  there  a  creek  down  in  the  val- 
ley ahead?" 

Oh  yes,  there  was  a  creek  ;  but  had  I  any- 
thing to  drink  out  of  ?  I  thanked  her.  Yes, 
I  had  a  cup.  "  My  husband  will  be  at  home 
by  the  time  you  come  back,"  she  said,  as  I 
started  on,  and  I  promised  to  call. 

The  scene  at  the  brook,  halfway  between 
the  German's  house  and  the  top,  would  of 
itself  have  paid  me  for  my  morning's  jaunt. 
I  stood  on  a  boulder  in  mid-current,  in  the 
shadow  of  overhanging  trees,  and  drank  it 
in.     Such  rhododendrons  and  laurel,  now  in 


148     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

the  perfection  of  their  beauty !  One  rho- 
dodendron bush  was  at  least  ten  feet  high, 
and  loaded  with  blooms.  Another  lifted  its 
crown  of  a  dozen  rose-purple  clusters  amid 
the  dark  foliage  of  a  hemlock.  A  magnolia- 
tree  stood  near ;  but  though  it  was  much 
taller  than  the  laurel  or  the  rhododendron, 
and  had  much  larger  flowers,  it  made  little 
show  beside  them.  Birds  were  singing  on 
all  hands,  and  numbers  of  gay-colored  but- 
terflies flitted  about,  sipping  here  and  there 
at  a  blossom.  I  remember  especially  a  fine 
tiger  swallow-tail;  the  only  one  I  saw  in 
Tennessee,  I  believe.  I  remember,  too,  how 
well  the  rhododendron  became  him.  Here, 
as  in  many  other  places,  the  laurel  was 
nearly  white ;  a  happy  circumstance,  as  it 
and  the  rhododendron  went  the  more  har- 
moniously together.  Even  in  this  high 
company,  some  tufts  of  cinnamon  fern  were 
not  to  be  overlooked  ;  the  fertile  cinnamon- 
brown  fronds  were  now  at  their  loveliest, 
and  showed  as  bravely  here,  I  thought,  as  in 
the  barest  of  Massachusetts  swamp-lands. 

A  few  rods  more,  up  a  moderate  slope, 
and  I  was  at  the  top  of  the  mountain,  — 
a  wall  of    outcropping   rocks,    falling    off 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE,      149 

abruptly  on  tlie  further  side,  and  looking 
almost  like  an  artificial  rampart.  Beyond 
me,  to  my  surprise,  I  heard  the  hum  of 
cicadas,  —  seventeen-year  locusts,  —  a  sound 
of  which  the  lower  country  had  for  some 
time  been  full,  but  of  which,  till  this  mo- 
ment, I  had  heard  nothing  on  the  Eidge. 

As  for  the  prospect,  it  was  far  reaching, 
but  only  in  one  direction,  and  through  open- 
ings among  the  trees.  Directly  before  me, 
some  hundreds  of  feet  below,  was  a  piece  of 
road,  with  a  single  cabin  and  a  barn ;  and 
much  farther  away  were  other  cabins,  each 
with  its  private  clearing.  Elsewhere  the 
foreground  was  an  unbroken  forest.  For 
some  time  I  could  not  distinguish  the  Eidge 
itself  from  the  outlying  world.  Mountains 
and  hills  crowded  the  hazy  horizon,  range 
beyond  range.  Moving  along  the  rocks,  I 
found  a  vista  through  which  Chattanooga 
and  Lookout  Mountain  were  visible.  An- 
other change,  and  a  stretch  of  the  Tennessee 
Eiver  came  into  sight,  and,  beyond  it,  Mis- 
sionary Eidge  with  its  settlements  and  its 
two  observatories.  Evidently  I  was  consid- 
erably above  the  level  of  the  Brow  ;  but 
whether  this  was  really  the  top  of  the  moun- 


150     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

tain  —  reached,  in  some  mysterious  way, 
without  going  uphill  —  was  more  than  I 
could  say.^ 

Nor  did  it  matter.  I  was  glad  to  be 
there.  It  was  a  pleasant  place  and  a  i^leas- 
ant  hour,  with  an  oak  root  for  a  seat,  and 
never  an  insect  to  trouble  me.  That,  by  the 
way,  was  true  of  all  those  Tennessee  forests, 
—  when  I  was  there,  I  mean  ;  from  what  I 
heard,  the  ticks  and  jiggers  must  be  bad 
enough  later  in  the  season.  As  men  do  at 
such  times,  —  for  human  nature  is  of  noble 
origin,  and  feels  no  surprise  at  being  well 
treated,  —  I  took  my  immunity  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  only  realized  how  I  had  been 
favored  when  I  got  back  to  Massachusetts, 
where,  on  my  first  visit  to  the  woods,  I  was 
fairly  driven  out  by  swarms  of  mosquitoes. 

The  shoemaker  was  at  home  when  I 
reached  his  house  on  my  return,  and  at  the 
urgent  invitation  of  himself  and  his  wife  I 
joined  them  on  the  piazza  for  a  bit  of  neigh- 
borly chat.     I  found  him  a  smallish  man, 

^  It  was  not  the  top  of  the  mountain  ;  so  I  am  now  in- 
formed, on  the  best  of  authority.  I  followed  the  map, 
but  misunderstood  the  man  who  drew  it.  It  was  a  map 
of  some  other  route,  and  I  did  not  see  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  after  all. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.      151 

not  German  in  appearance,  but  looking,  I 
thought,  like  Thoreau,  only  grown  a  little 
older.  He  had  been  on  Walden's  Ridge  for 
fifteen  years.  Before  that  he  was  in  South 
Carolina,  but  the  yellow  fever  came  along 
and  made  him  feel  like  getting  out.  Yes, 
this  was  a  healthy  country.  He  had  nothing 
to  complain  of  ;  he  was  sixty-two  years  old 
and  his  doctors'  bills  had  never  amounted  to 
"  five  doUar." 

"  Do  you  like  living  here  ?  "  I  asked  bis 
wife. 

"  No,"  she  answered  promptly  ;  "  I  never 
did.  But  then,"  she  added,  "  we  can't  help 
it.  If  you  own  something,  you  know,  you 
have  to  stay." 

The  author  of  Walden  would  have  appre- 
ciated that  remark.  There  was  no  shoe- 
making  to  be  done  here,  the  man  said,  his 
nearest  neighbor  being  half  a  mile  distant 
through  the  woods  ;  and  there  was  no  clover, 
so  that  his  bees  did  not  do  very  well ;  and 
the  frost  had  just  killed  all  his  peach-trees  ; 
but  when  I  asked  if  he  never  felt  homesick 
for  Germany,  the  answer  came  like  a  pistol 
shot, —"No." 

I  inquired  about  a  cave,  of  which  I  had 


152     A    WEEK  ON    WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

heard  reports.  Yes,  it  was  a  good  cave, 
they  said ;  I  could  easily  find  it.  But  their 
directions  conveyed  no  very  clear  idea  to 
my  mind,  and  by  and  by  the  woman  began 
talking  to  her  husband  in  German.  "  She 
is  telling  him  he  ought  to  go  with  me 
and  show  me  the  way,"  I  said  to  myself; 
and  the  next  moment  she  came  back  to 
Enghsh.  "  He  will  go  with  you,"  she  said. 
I  demurred,  but  he  protested  that  he  could 
do  it  as  well  as  not.  "  Take  up  a  stick ; 
you  might  see  a  snake,"  his  wife  called  after 
him,  as  we  left  the  house.  He  smiled,  but 
did  not  follow  her  advice,  though  I  fancied 
he  would  have  done  so  had  she  gone  along 
with  us.  A  half-mile  or  so  through  the 
pathless  woods  brought  us  to  the  cave, 
which  might  hold  a  hundred  persons,  I 
thought.  The  dribbling  "  creek  "  fell  over 
it  in  front.  Then  the  man  took  me  to  my 
path,  pointed  my  way  homeward,  and,  with 
a  handshake  (the  silver  lining  of  which  was 
not  refused,  though  I  had  been  troubled 
with  a  scruple),  bade  me  good-by.  First, 
however,  he  told  me  that  if  I  found  any  one 
in  Boston  who  wanted  to  buy  a  place  on 
Walden's  Eidge,  he  would  sell  a  part  of  his 


A   WEEK  ON  WALDEN'S  BIDGE.     153 

or  tlie  whole  of  it.  I  remember  him  most 
kindly,  and  would  gladly  do  him  a  service. 
If  any  reader,  having  a  landed  investment 
in  view,  should  desire  my  intervention  in 
the  premises,  I  am  freely  at  his  command ; 
only  let  him  bear  in  mind  the  terms  of  the 
deed :  "  If  you  own  something,  you  know, 
you  have  to  stay." 

II. 

Fairmount,  as  has  already  been  said,  is 
but  a  clearing  in  the  forest.  Instead  of  a 
solitary  cabin,  as  elsewhere,  there  are  per- 
haps a  dozen  or  two  of  cabins  and  houses 
scattered  along  the  road,  which  emerges 
from  the  woods  at  one  end  of  the  settlement, 
and,  after  a  mile  or  so  in  the  sun,  drops 
into  them  again  at  the  other  end.  The. 
glory  of  the  place,  and  the  reason  of  its 
being,  as  I  suppose,  is  a  chalybeate  spring 
in  a  woody  hollow  before  the  post-office. 
There  may  be  a  shoj)  of  some  kind,  also, 
but  memory  retains  no  such  impression. 
One  building,  rather  larger  than  most  of 
its  neighbors,  and  apparently  unoccupied,  I 
looked  at  more  than  once  with  a  measure 
of  that  curiosity  which  is  everywhere  the 


154     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

stranger's  privilege.  It  sat  squarely  on  the 
road,  and  boasted  a  sort  of  portico  or  piazza, 
—  it  puzzled  me  what  to  call  it,  —  but  there 
was  no  vestige  of  a  chimney.  One  day  a 
ragged,  bright-faced  boy  met  me  at  the  right 
moment,  and  I  asked,  "  Did  some  one  use 
to  live  in  that  house  ?  "  "  That  ?  "  said  he, 
in  a  tone  I  shall  never  forget.  "  That 's  a 
barn.  That  over  there  is  the  dwelling." 
My  ignorance  was  fittingly  rebuked,  and  I 
had  no  spirit  to  inquire  about  the  piazza. 
Probably  it  was  nothing  but  a  lean-to. 
Even  in  my  humiliation,  however,  it  pleased 
me  to  hear  what  I  should  have  called  that 
good  literary  word  "  dwelling  "  on  such  lips. 
A  Yankee  boy  might  have  said  "  dwelling- 
house,"  but  no  Yankee  of  any  age,  or  none 
that  I  have  ever  known,  would  have  said 
"  dwelling,"  though  he  might  have  read  the 
word  in  books  a  thousand  times.  I  thought 
of  a  spruce  colored  waiter  in  Florida,  who, 
when  I  asked  him  at  breakfast  how  the  day 
was  likely  to  turn  out,  answered  promptly, 
"I  think  it  will  be  inclement."  It  may 
reasonably  be  counted  among  the  minor 
advantages  of  travel  that  it  enriches  one's 
every-day  vocabulary. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      155 

Another  Fairmount  building  (an  unmis- 
takable house,  this  time)  is  memorable  to 
me  because  on  the  doorstep,  day  after  day, 
an  old  gentleman  and  a  younger  antagonist 
—  they  might  have  been  grandfather  and 
grandson  —  were  playing  checkers.  "  I 
hope  you  are  beating  the  young  fellow,"  I 
could  not  help  saying  once  to  the  old  gen- 
tleman. He  smiled  dubiously,  and  made 
some  halting  reply  suggestive  of  resignation 
rather  than  triumph  ;  and  it  came  to  me 
with  a  kind  of  pang,  as  I  passed  on,  that  if 
growing  old  is  a  bad  business,  as  most  of  us 
think,  it  is  perhaps  an  unfavorable  symp- 
tom when  a  man  finds  himself,  not  out  of 
politeness,  but  as  a  simple  matter  of  course, 
taking  sides  with  the  aged. 

Fairmounters,  living  in  the  woods,  have 
no  outlook  upon  the  world.  If  they  wish  to 
see  off,  they  must  go  to  the  Brow,  which,  by 
a  stroller's  guess,  may  be  two  miles  distant. 
My  first  visit  to  it  was  the  pleasanter  —  the 
more  vacational,  so  to  speak  —  for  being  an 
accident.  I  sauntered  aimlessly  down  the 
road,  past  the  scattered  houses  and  orchards 
(the  raising  of  early  apples  seemed  to  be 
a  leading  industry  on  the  Ridge,  though  a 


156     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

Chattanooga  gentleman  had  assured  me  that 
the  principal  crops  were  blackberries  and 
rabbits),  and  almost  before  I  knew  it,  was 
in  the  same  delightful  woods  that  had  wel- 
comed me  wherever  I  had  gone.  And  in 
the  same  woods  the  same  birds  were  singing. 
My  notes  make  particular  record  of  hooded 
and  Kentucky  warblers,  these  being  two  of 
my  newer  acquaintances,  as  well  as  two  of 
the  commoner  Ridge  songsters ;  but  I  halted 
for  some  time,  and  with  even  a  livelier  inter- 
est, to  listen  to  an  old  friend  (no  acquaint- 
ance, if  you  please),  —  a  black  -  throated 
green  warbler.  It  was  one  of  the  queerest 
of  songs  :  a  bar  of  five  or  six  notes,  uniform 
in  pitch,  and  then  at  once,  in  perfect  form 
and  voice,  —  the  voice  being  a  main  part  of 
the  music  in  the  case  of  this  warbler, — 
the  familiar  trees,  trees,  7nurmuring  trees. 
Where  could  the  fellow  have  picked  up  such 
a  ditty?  No  doubt  there  was  some  story 
connected  with  it.  Nothing  is  born  of  itself. 
A  dozen  years  ago,  in  the  Green  Mountains, 
—  at  Bread-Loaf  Inn,  —  I  heard  from  the 
forest  by  the  roadside  a  song  utterly  strange, 
and  hastened  in  search  of  its  author.  After 
much  furtive  approach  and  diligent  scanning 


A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE.      157 

of  the  foliage,  I  liad  the  bird  under  my 
opera-glass,  —  a  black-throated  blue  war- 
bler !  With  my  eye  still  upon  him,  he  sang 
again  and  again,  and  the  song  bore  no  faint- 
est resemblance  to  the  kree,  Xree,  kree,  which 
all  New  England  bird-lovers  know  as  the 
work  of  Dendi'oica  cmrulescens.  In  what 
private  school  he  had  been  educated  I  have, 
no  idea;  but  I  believe  that  every  such 
extreme  eccentricity  goes  back  to  some- 
thing out  of  the  common  in  the  bird's  early 
training. 

I  felt  in  no  haste.  Life  is  easy  in  the 
Tennessee  mountains.  A  pile  of  lumber, 
newly  unloaded  near  the  road,  —  in  the 
woods,  of  course,  —  offered  a  timely  seat, 
and  I  took  it.  Some  Chattanooga  gentle- 
man was  planning  a  summer  cottage  for 
himself,  I  gathered.  May  he  enjoy  it  for 
twenty  years  as  much  as  I  did  for  twenty 
minutes.  Not  far  beyond,  near  a  fork  in  the 
road,  a  man  of  twenty-five  or  thirty,  a  youth 
of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  and  a  small  boy  were 
playing  marbles  in  a  cabin  yard.  I  inter- 
rupted the  sport  long  enough  to  inquire 
which  road  I  had  better  take.  I  was  going 
nowhere    in    particular,    I    explained,    and 


158     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

wanted  simply  a  pleasant  stroll.  "  Then  I 
would  go  to  tlie  Brow,  if  I  were  you,"  said 
the  man.  "  Keep  a  straight  road.  It  is  n't 
far."  I  thanked  him,  and  with  a  cheery 
" Come  on!  "  to  his  playmates  he  ran  back, 
literally,  to  the  ring.  Yes,  life  is  easy  in 
the  Tennessee  mountains.  It  is  not  to  be 
assumed,  nevertheless,  that  the  man  was  a 
do-nothing:  probably  he  had  struck  work 
for  a  few  minutes  only ;  but,  like  a  sensible 
player,  he  was  enjoying  the  game  while  it/" 
lasted.  Perhaps  it  is  a  certain  inborn  Puri- 
tanical industriousness,  against  which  I  have 
never  found  the  courage  effectually  to  rebel, 
that  makes  me  look  back  upon  this  door- 
yard  comedy  as  one  of  the  brightest  inci- 
dents of  my  Tennessee  vacation.  Fancy  a 
Massachusetts  farmer  playing  marbles  at 
nine  o'clock  in  the  forenoon ! 

At  that  moment,  it  must  be  owned,  a  re- 
buke of  idleness  would  have  fallen  with  a 
poor  grace  from  my  Massachusetts  lips.  If 
the  player  of  marbles  had  followed  his  ques- 
tioner round  the  first  turn,  he  woidd  have 
seen  him  standing  motionless  beside  a  swamp, 
holding  his  head  on  one  side  as  if  listening, 
—  though  there  was  nothing  to  be  heard,  — 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.     159 

or  evoking  ridiculous  squeaking  noises  by- 
sucking  idiotically  the  back  of  his  hand. 
Well,  I  was  trying  to  find  another  bird,  just 
as  he  was  trying  to  knock  another  marble 
out  of  the  ring. 

The    spot    invited    such   researches,  —  a 
bushy  swamp,  quite   unlike  the  dry  woods 
and   rocky  woodland   brooks  which   I   had 
found   everywhere    else.      I    had   seen   my 
first  cerulean  warbler  on  Lookout  Mountain, 
my  first   Cape   May  warbler   on   Cameron 
Hill,  my  first  Kentucky  warbler  on  Mission- 
ary Kidge,  and  my  first  blue-winged  yellow 
warbler  at  the  Chickamauga  battlefield.     If 
Walden  was  to  treat  me  equally  well,  as  in 
all   fairness   it   ought,  now   was   the   time. 
Looking,  listening,  and  squeaking  were  alike 
unrewarded,  however,  till  I  approached  the 
same  spot  on  my  return.     Then  some  bird 
sang  a  new  song.     I  hoped  it  was  a  protho- 
notary  warbler,  a  bird  I  had  never  seen,  and 
about  whose  notes  I  knew  nothing.     More 
likely  it   was   a   Louisiana  water-thrush,  a 
bird  I  had  seen,  but  had  never  heard  sing. 
Whichever  it  was,  alas,  it  speedily  fell  silent, 
and  no  beating  of  the  bush  proved  of  the 
least  avail. 


160     A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  EIDGE. 

Meanwhile  I  had  been  to  the  Brow,  where 
I  had  sat  for  an  hour  or  more  on  the  edge 
of  the  mountain,  gazing  down  upon  the 
world.  The  sky  was  clouded,  but  here  and 
there  were  fugitive  patches  of  sunshine,  now 
on  Missionary  Ridge,  now  on  the  river,  now 
glorifying  the  smoke  of  the  city.  Southward, 
just  across  the  valley  and  over  Chattanooga, 
was  Lookout  Mountain  ;  eastward  stretched 
Missionary  Eidge,  with  many  higher  hills 
behind  it ;  and  more  to  the  north,  and  far 
in  the  distance,  loomed  the  Great  Smoky 
Mountains,  in  all  respects  true  to  their 
name.  The  valley  at  my  feet  was  beautiful 
beyond  words:  green  forests  interspersed 
with  green  clearings,  lonely  cabins,  and  bare 
fields  of  red  earth.  At  the  north,  Wal- 
den's  Eidge  made  a  turn  eastward,  narrowing 
the  valley,  but  without  ending  it.  Chimney 
swifts  were  cackling  merrily,  and  the  air  was 
full  of  the  hum  of  seventeen-year  locusts,  — 
miles  and  miles  of  continuous  sound.  From 
somewhere  far  below  rose  the  tinkle  of  cow- 
bells. Even  on  that  cloudy  and  smoky  day 
it  was  a  glorious  landscape ;  but  it  pleased 
me  afterward  to  remember  that  the  eye  re- 
turned of  itself  again  and  again  to  a  stretch 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.     161 

of  freshly  green  meadow  along  a  slender 
watercourse,  —  a  valley  within  the  valley. 
Of  all  the  fair  picture,  that  was  the  most 
like  home. 

Meanwhile  there  was  no  forgetting  that 
undiscovered  stranger  in  the  swamp.  Who- 
ever he  was,  he  must  be  made  to  show 
himself ;  and  the  next  day,  when  the  usual 
noonday  deluge  was  past,  I  looked  at  the 
clouds,  and  said  :  "  We  shall  have  another, 
but  in  the  interval  I  can  probably  reach  the 
Brow.  There  I  will  take  shelter  on  the 
piazza  of  an  unoccupied  cottage,  and,  when 
the  rain  is  over,  go  back  to  the  swamp,  see 
my  bird,  and  thence  return  home."  So  it 
turned  out  —  in  part.  The  clouds  hurried 
me,  but  I  reached  the  Brow  just  in  season, 
climbed  the  cottage  fence,  the  gate  being 
padlocked,  and,  thoroughly  heated  as  I  was, 
paced  briskly  to  and  fro  on  the  piazza  in 
a  chilling  breeze  for  an  hour  or  more,  the 
flood  all  the  while  threatening  to  fall,  and 
the  thunder  shaking  the  house.  There  was 
plenty  to  look  at,  for  the  cottage  faced  the 
Great  Smokies,  and  though  we  were  under 
the  blackest  of  clouds,  the  landscape  below 
was  largely  in  the  sun.     The  noise  of  the 


162     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

locusts  was  incessant.  Nothing  but  the  peals 
of  thunder  kept  it  out  of  my  ears. 

So  far,  then,  my  plans  had  prospered; 
but  to  find  the  mysterious  bird,  —  that  was 
not  so  easy.  The  swamp  was  silent,  and  I 
was  at  once  so  cold  and  so  hot,  and  so  badly 
under  the  weather  already,  that  I  dared  not 
linger. 

In  the  woods,  nevertheless,  I  stopped  long 
enough  to  enjoy  the  music  of  a  master 
cardinal,  —  a  bewitching  song,  and,  as  I 
thought,  original  :  hirdy,  hirdy^  repeated 
about  ten  times  in  the  sweetest  of  whistles, 
and  then  a  sudden  descent  in  the  pitch,  and 
the  same  syllables  over  again.  At  that 
instant,  a  Carolina  wren,  as  if  stirred  to 
rivalry,  sprang  into  a  bush  and  began 
whistling  cherry^  clierry^  cherry  at  his 
loudest  and  prettiest.  It  was  a  royal  duet. 
The  cardinal  was  in  magnificent  plumage, 
and  a  scarlet  tanager  near  by  was  equally 
handso>^e.  If  the  tanager  could  whistle 
like  the  cardinal,  our  New  England  woods 
would  have  a  bird  to  brag  of. 

Not  far  beyond  these  wayside  musicians  I 
came  upon  a  boy  sitting  beside  a  wood-pile, 
with  his  saw  lying  on  the  ground.     "It  is 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      163 

easier  to  sit  down  than  to  saw  wood, 
is  n't  it  ?  "  said  I.  Possibly  lie  was  unused 
to  such  aphoristic  modes  of  speech.  He 
took  time  to  consider.  Then  he  smiled,  and 
said,  "  Yes,  sir."  The  answer  was  all-suffi- 
cient. We  spoke  from  experience,  both  of 
us ;  and  between  men  who  knoiv,  what- 
ever the  matter  in  hand,  disagreement  is 
impossible  and  amplification  needless. 

Three  days  later  —  my  last  day  on  the 
Ridge  —  I  had  better  luck  at  the  swamp. 
The  stranger  was  singing  on  the  nearer 
edge  as  I  approached,  and  I  had  simply  to 
draw  near  and  look  at  him,  —  a  Louisiana 
water  -  thrush.  He  sang,  and  I  listened  ; 
and  farther  along,  at  the  little  bridge  where 
I  had  first  heard  the  song,  another  like  him 
was  in  tune.  The  strain,  as  warbler  songs 
go  ("  water-thrushes "  being  not  thrushes, 
but  warblers),  is  rather  striking,  —  clear, 
pretty  loud,  of  about  ten  notes,  the  first  pair 
of  which  are  longest  and  best.  I  s^^eak  of 
what  I  heard,  and  give,  of  course,  my  own 
impression.  Audubon  pronounces  the  notes 
"  as  powerful  and  mellow,  and  at  times  as 
varied,"  as  those  of  the  nightingale,  and 
Wilson  waxes  almost  equally  enthusiastic  in 


164     A    WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

his  praise  of  the  "  exquisitely  sweet  and 
expressive  voice."  Here,  as  in  Florida,  I 
was  interested  to  perceive  how  instantly  the 
bird's  appearance  and  carriage  distinguished 
it  from  its  Northern  relative,  although  the 
descriptions  of  the  two  species,  as  given  in 
books,  sound  confusingly  alike.  It  is  mat- 
ter for  thankfulness,  perhaps,  that  language 
is  not  yet  so  all-expressive  as  to  render 
individual  eyesight  superfluous. 

I  kept  on  to  the  Brow,  and  some  time 
afterward  was  at  Mabbitt's  Spring,  quench- 
ing my  thirst  with  a  draught  of  liquid  iron 
rust,  when  a  third  songster  of  the  same  kind 
struck  up  his  tune.  The  spring,  spurting 
out  of  the  rock  in  a  slender  jet,  is  beside  the 
same  stream  —  Little  Falling  Water  —  that 
makes  through  the  swamp;  and  along  its 
banks,  it  appeared,  the  water-thrushes  were 
at  home.  I  was  glad  to  have  heard  the 
famous  singer,  but  my  satisfaction  was  not 
without  alloy.  Walden,  after  all,  had  failed 
to  show  me  a  new  bird,  though  it  had  given 
me  a  new  song. 

The  most  fatiguing,  and  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  of  my  days  on  the  Ridge  was 
the  one  day  in  which  I  did  not  travel  on 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.     165 

foot.  Passing  through  the  village,  on  my 
return  from  one  of  my  earlier  visits  to 
Falling  Water,  I  stopped  a  nice-looking 
man  (if  he  will  pardon  the  expression, 
copied  from  my  notes),  driving  a  horse  with 
a  pair  of  clothes-line  reins.  He  had  an  air 
of  being  at  home,  and  naturally  I  took  him 
for  a  native.  Would  he  tell  me  something 
about  the  country,  especially  about  the 
roads,  so  that  I  might  improve  my  scanty 
time  to  the  best  advantage  ?  Very  glably, 
he  answered.  He  had  walked  and  driven 
over  the  mountain  a  good  deal,  surveying, 
and  if  I  would  call  at  his  house,  a  short  dis- 
tance down  the  road,  —  the  house  with  the 
big  barn,  —  he  would  make  me  a  rough  map, 
such  as  would  answer  my  purpose.  At  the 
same  time  he  mentioned  two  or  three  shorter 
excursions  which  I  ought  not  to  miss  ;  and 
when  I  had  thanked  him  for  his  kindness, 
he  gathered  up  the  reins  and  drove  on. 
Intending  no  disrespect  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Ridge,  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  say 
that  I  was  considerably  impressed  by  a  cer- 
tain unexpected  propriety,  and  even  ele- 
gance, of  diction,  on  the  part  of  my  new 
acquaintance.     I  remember  in  particular  his 


166     A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  BIDGE. 

description  of  a  pleasant  cold  spring  as 
being  situated  not  far  from  the  "con- 
fluence "  of  two  streams.  Con-Jliiens,  I 
thought,  flowing  together.  Having  always 
something  else  to  do,  I  omitted  to  call  at 
his  house,  and  one  day,  when  we  met  again 
in  the  road,  I  apologized  for  my  neglect, 
and  asked  another  favor.  He  was  familiar 
with  the  country,  and  kept  a  horse.  Could 
he  not  spare  a  day  to  take  me  about  ?  If 
he  thought  this  proposal  a  bit  presumptuous, 
courtesy  restrained  him  from  letting  the  fact 
be  seen,  and,  after  a  few  minutes  of  delib- 
eration, —  his  hands  being  pretty  full  just 
then,  he  explained,  —  he  promised  to  call 
for  me  two  mornings  later,  at  seven  o'clock. 
We  would  take  a  luncheon  along,  and  make 
a  day  of  it. 

He  appeared  at  the  gate  in  due  season, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  we  were  driving  over 
a  road  new  to  me,  but  through  the  same 
spacious  oak  woods  to  which  I  had  grown 
accustomed.  We  went  first  to  Burnt  Cabin 
Spring,  one  of  the  famous  chalybeate  springs 
of  the  mountain,  —  a  place  formerly  fre- 
quented by  picnic  parties,  but  now,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, fallen  into  neglect.     We  stretched 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIBGE.     167 

our  legs,  drank  of  the  water,  admired  the 
flowers  and  ferns,  talking  all  the  while  (it 
was  here  that  my  companion  told  a  story  of 
a  young  theologian  from  Grant  University, 
who,  in  a  solemn  discourse,  spoke  repeatedly 
of  Jacob  as  having  "  euchred  his  brother 
out  of  his  birthright  "),  and  then,  while  a 
"  pheasant "  drummed  near  by,  took  our 
places  again  in  the  buggy. 

Another  stage,  still  through  the  oak 
woods,  and  we  were  at  Signal  Point,  famous 
—  in  local  tradition,  at  least  —  as  the  station 
from  which  General  Sherman  signaled  en- 
couragement to  the  Union  army  beleaguered 
in  Chattanooga,  in  danger  of  starvation  or 
surrender.  I  had  looked  at  the  bold,  jut- 
ting crags  from  Lookout  Mountain  and  else- 
where, and  rejoiced  at  last  to  stand  upon  them. 

It  would  have  been  delightful  to  spend 
a  long  day  there,  lying  upon  the  cliffs  and 
enjoying  the  prospect,  which,  without  being 
so  far-reaching  as  from  Point  Lookout,  or 
even  from  the  eastern  brim  of  Walden,  is 
yet  extensive  and  surpassingly  beautiful. 
The  visitor  is  squarely  above  the  river, 
which  here,  in  the  straitened  valley  between 
the   Ridge   and   Raccoon  Mountain,  grows 


168      A    WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

narrower  and  narrower  till  it  rushes  through 
the  "  Suck."  Even  at  that  elevation  we 
could  hear  the  roar  of  the  rapids.  A  short 
distance  above  the  Suck,  and  almost  at 
our  feet,  lay  Williams  Island.  A  farmer's 
Eden  it  looked,  with  its  broad,  newly 
planted  fields,  and  its  house  surrounded  by 
outbuildings  and  orchard-trees.  The  view 
included  Chattanooga,  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  much  else  ;  but  its  special  charm  was 
its  foreground,  the  part  peculiar  to  itself,  — 
the  valley,  the  river,  and  Raccoon  Mountain. 
Along  the  river-banks  were  small  clearings, 
each  with  its  one  cabin,  and  generally  a 
figure  or  two  ploughing  or  planting.  A 
man  in  a  strangely  long  boat  —  a  dugout, 
probably  —  was  making  his  difficult  way 
upstream  with  a  paddle.  The  Tennessee, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Chattanooga,  at  all 
events,  is  too  swift  for  pleasure-boating. 
Seen  from  above,  as  I  commonly  saw  it,  it 
looked  tranquil  enough  ;  but  when  I  came 
down  to  its  edge,  now  and  then,  the  speed 
and  energetic  sweep  of  the  smooth  current 
laid  fast  hold  upon  me.  From  the  mountains 
to  the  sea  is  a  long,  long  journey,  and  no 
wonder  the  river  felt  in  haste. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.     169 

I  had  gone  to  Signal  Point  not  as  an 
ornithologist,  but  as  a  patriot  and  a  lover 
of  beauty  ;  but,  being  there,  I  added  one  to 
my  list  of  Tennessee  birds,  —  a  red-tailed 
hawk,  one  of  thp  very  few  hawks  seen  in  all 
my  trip.  Sailing  below  us,  it  displayed  its 
rusty,  diagnostic  tail,  and  put  its  identity  at 
once  beyond  question. 

Our  next  start  —  far  too  speedy,  for  the 
day  was  short  —  was  for  Williams  Point; 
but  on  our  way  thither  we  descended  into 
the  valley  of  Shoal  Creek,  down  which,  with 
the  creek  to  keep  it  company,  runs  the  old 
mountain  road,  now  disused  and  practically 
impassable.  Here  we  hitched  the  horse, 
and  strolled  downwards  for  perhaps  half  a 
mile.  I  was  never  in  a  lovelier  spot.  The 
mountain  brook,  laughing  over  the  stones, 
is  overhung  with  laurel  and  rhododendron, 
which  in  turn  are  overhung  by  precipitous 
rocks  broken  into  all  wild  and  romantic 
shapes,  with  here  and  there  a  cavern  — 
"  rock-house  "  —  to  shelter  a  score  of  travel- 
ers. The  place  was  rich  in  ferns  and  other 
plants,  which,  unhappily,  I  had  no  time  to 
examine,  and  all  the  particulars  of  which 
have  faded  out  of  my  memory.     We  walked 


170      A    WEEK  ON   W^ALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

far  enough  to  look  over  the  edge  of  the 
mountain,  and  up  to  the  Signal  Point  cliffs. 
If  I  could  have  stayed  there  two  or  three 
hours,  it  would  have  been  a  memorable 
season.  As  it  was,  the  stroll  was  enlivened 
by  one  little  adventure,  at  which  I  have 
laughed  too  many  times  ever  to  forget  it. 

I  had  been  growing  rapturous  over  the 
beauty  of  things,  when  my  companion  said, 
"  There  are  some  people  whom  it  is  no 
pleasure  to  take  into  places  like  this.  They 
can't  keep  their  eyes  off  the  ground,  they 
are  so  bitten  with  the  fear  of  snakes."  He 
was  a  few  paces  ahead  of  me,  as  he  spoke, 
and  the  sentence  was  barely  finished  before 
he  shouted,  "  Look  at  that  huge  snake !  " 
and  sprang  forward  to  snatch  up  a  stone. 
"  Get  a  stick  I  "  he  cried.  *'  Get  a  stick  !  " 
From  his  manner  I  took  it  for  granted  that 
the  creature  was  a  rattlesnake,  and  a  glance 
at  it,  lying  motionless  among  the  stones 
beside  the  road,  did  not  undeceive  me.  I 
turned  hurriedly,  looking  for  a  stick,  but 
somehow  could  not  find  one,  and  in  a  mo- 
ment more  was  recalled  by  shouts  of  "  Come 
and  help  me  !  It  will  get  away  from  us  I  " 
It   was    a   question   of    life   and   death,   I 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      171 

thought,  and  I  ran  forward  and  began 
throwing  stones.  "  Look  out !  Look  out  I 
You  '11  bury  it !  "  cried  my  companion ;  but 
just  then  one  of  my  shots  struck  the  snake 
squarely  in  the  head.  "  That  's  a  good 
one !  "  exclaimed  the  other  man,  and,  pick- 
ing up  a  dead  stick,  he  thrust  it  under  the 
disabled  creature  and  tossed  it  into  the  road. 
Then  he  bent  over  it,  and,  with  a  stone, 
pounded  its  head  to  a  jelly.  Such  a  fury  as 
possessed  him  !  He  might  have  been  bruis- 
ing the  head  of  Satan  himself,  as  no  doubt 
he  was  —  in  his  mind  ;  for  my  surveyor  was 
also  a  preacher,  as  had  already  transpired. 

"  It  is  n't  a  venomous  snake,  is  it  ?  "  I 
ventured  to  ask,  when  the  work  was  done. 

"  Oh,  I  think  not,"  and  he  pried  open  its 
jaws  to  look  for  its  fangs. 

"  I  don't  generally  kill  innocent  snakes," 
I  ventured  again,  a  little  inopportunely,  it 
must  be  confessed. 

"  Well,  /do,"  said  the  preacher.  "  The 
very  sight  of  a  snake  stirs  my  hatred  to  its 
depths." 

After  that  it  was  natural  to  inquire 
whether  he  often  saw  rattlesnakes  here- 
abouts.    (The  driver  who   brought  me   up 


172     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

the  mountain  Lad  said  that  they  were  not 
common,  but  that  I  "  wanted  to  look  out 
sharp  for  them  in  the  woods.")  My  com- 
panion had  never  seen  one,  he  answered,  but 
his  wife  had  once  killed  one  in  their  door- 
yard.  Then,  by  way  of  cooling  off,  after 
the  fervor  of  the  conflict,  he  told  me  about 
a  gentleman  and  his  little  boy,  who,  having 
come  to  sj^end  a  vacation  on  the  Ridge, 
started  out  in  the  morning  for  a  stroll. 
They  were  quicldy  back  again,  and  the  boy, 
quite  out  of  breath,  came  running  into  the 
garden. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  M.,"  he  cried,  "  we  saw  a  rat- 
tlesnake, and  papa  fired  off  his  pistol !  " 

"  A  rattlesnake  !     Where   is  it  ?     What 
did  it  look  like?" 

"  Why,  we  did  n't  see  it,  but  we  heard  it." 
"  What  was  the  noise   like  ?  "  asked  Mr. 
M.,  and  he  took  a  pencil  from   his   pocket 
and  began  tapping  on  a  log. 

"  That 's  it !  "  said  the  boy,  "  that  's  it !  " 
They  had  heard  a  woodpecker  drilling  for 
grubs,  —  or  drumming  for  love,  —  where- 
upon the  man  had  fired  his  pistol,  and  for 
them  there  was  no  more  walking  in  the 
woods. 


A    WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  RIDGE.     173 

After  our  ramble  along  Shoal  Creek  we 
rested  at  the  ford,  near  a  brilliant  show  of 
laurel  and  rhododendron,  and  ate  our  lun- 
cheon to  the  music  of  the  stream.  I  finished 
first,  as  my  evil  habit  is,  and  was  crossing 
the  brook  on  natural  stepping-stones  when 
a  bird  —  a  warbler  of  some  unknown  kind 
' — saluted  me  from  the  thicket.  Making 
my  com]3anion  a  signal  not  to  disturb  us  by 
driving  into  the  stream,  I  gave  myself  up 
to  discovering  the  singer ;  edging  this  way 
and  that,  while  the  fellow  moved  about  also, 
always  unseen,  and  sang  again  and  again, 
now  a  louder  song,  now,  with  charming  effect, 
a  quieter  and  briefer  one,  till  I  was  almost  as 
badly  beside  myself  as  the  preacher  had  been 
half  an  hour  before.  But  my  warfare  was 
less  successful  than  his,  for,  with  all  my 
pains,  I  saw  not  so  much  as  a  feather. 
There  is  nothing  prettier  than  a  jungle  of 
laurel  and  rhododendron  in  full  bloom,  but 
there  are  many  easier  places  in  which  to 
make  out  a  bird. 

Williams  Point,  which  we  reached  on  foot, 
after  driving  as  near  it  as  the  roughness  of 
the  unfrequented  road  would  comfortably 
allow,  is  not  in  itself  equal  to  Signal  Point, 


174     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

but  affords  substantially  tbe  same  magnifi- 
cent iDrospect.  Near  it,  in  the  woods,  stood 
a  newly  built  cabin,  looking  badly  out  of 
place  with  its  glaring  unweatbered  boards  ; 
and  beside  the  cabin  stood  a  man  and 
woman  in  a  condition  of  extreme  disgust. 
The  man  had  come  up  the  mountain  to  work 
in  some  coal-mine,  if  I  understood  him  cor- 
rectly ;  but  the  tools  were  not  ready,  there 
was  no  water,  his  household  goods  were 
stranded  down  in  the  valley  somewhere  (the 
hens  were  starving  to  death,  the  woman 
added),  and,  all  in  all,  the  pair  were  in  a 
sorry  plight. 

Here,  as  at  Signal  Point,  I  made  an  addi- 
tion to  my  local  ornithology,  and  this  time 
too  the  bird  was  a  hawk.  We  were  stand- 
ing on  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  when  a  sparrow 
hawk,  after  alighting  near  us,  took  wing  and 
hung  for  some  time  suspended  over  the 
abyss,  beating  against  the  breeze,  and  so 
holding  itself  steady,  —  a  graceful  piece  of 
work,  the  better  appreciated  for  being  seen 
from  above.  Here,  also,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  1  was  addressed  as  a  "  you-un." 
"Where  be  you-uns  from?"  asked  the 
woman  at  the  cabin,  after  the  ordinary  greet- 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE.      175 

ings  had  been  exchanged.  I  believe,  in  my 
innocence,  I  had  always  looked  upon  that 
word  as  an  invention  of  story-writers. 

Somewhere  in  this  neighborhood  we 
traversed  a  pine  wood,  in  which  my  first 
Walden  pine  warbler  was  trilling.  Then, 
for  some  miles,  we  drove  along  the  Brow, 
with  the  glory  of  the  world  —  valley,  river, 
and  mountain  —  outspread  before  us,  and 
the  Great  Smokies  looming  in  the  back- 
ground, barely  visible  through  the  haze. 
For  seven  miles,  I  was  told,  one  could  drive 
along  that  mountain  rim.  Surely  the  city 
of  Chattanooga  is  happy  in  its  suburbs. 
Here  were  many  cottages,  the  greater  num- 
ber as  yet  unopened  ;  and  not  far  beyond 
the  one  under  the  piazza  of  which  I  had 
weathered  the  thunderstorm  of  the  day  be- 
fore, the  road  entered  the  forest  again. 
Then,  as  the  way  grew  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult, we  left  the  horse  behind  us,  and  by 
and  by  came  to  a  footpath.  This  brought  us 
at  last  to  Falling  Water  Fall,  where  Little 
Falling  Water  —  after  threading  the  swamp 
and  passing  Mabbitt's  Spring,  as  before 
described  —  tumbles  over  a  precipice  which 
my  companion,  with  his  surveyor's  eye,  esti- 


176     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIDGE. 

mated  to  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in 
height.  The  slender  stream,  broken  into 
jewels  as  it  falls,  strikes  the  bottom  at  some 
distance  from  the  foot  of  the  cliffs,  which 
here  form  the  arc  of  a  circle,  and  are  not 
perpendicular,  but  deeply  hollowed.  After 
enjoying  the  prospect  from  this  point,  — 
holding  to  a  tree  and  leaning  over  the  edge 
of  the  rocks,  —  we  retraced  our  steps  till  we 
came  to  a  steep,  zigzag  path,  which  took  us 
to  the  foot  of  the  precipice.  Here,  as  well 
as  above,  were  laurel  and  rhododendron  in 
profusion.  One  big  rhododendron-tree  grew 
on  the  face  of  the  cliff,  thirty  feet  over  our 
heads,  leaning  outward,  and  bearing  at  least 
fifty  clusters  of  gorgeous  rose-purple  flowers  ; 
and  a  smaller  one,  in  a  similiar  position, 
was  equally  full.  The  hanging  gardens  of 
Babylon  may  have  been  more  wonderful, 
but  I  was  well  content. 

From  the  point  where  we  stood  the  ledge 
makes  eastward  for  a  long  distance,  almost 
at  right  angles,  and  the  cliffs  for  a  mile  — 
or,  more  likely,  for  two  or  three  miles  — 
were  straight  before  us,  broken  everywhere 
into  angles,  light  gray  and  reddish-brown 
intermixed,  with  the  late  afternoon  sun  shin- 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  EIDGE.     177 

ing  full  upon  tliem,  and  tlie  green  forest 
fringing  them  above  and  sweeping  away 
from  them  below. 

It  was  a  breathless  clamber  up  the  rocks 
again,  tired  and  poorly  off  as  I  was,  but  1 
reached  the  top  with  one  hand  full  of  rho- 
dodendrons (it  seemed  a  shame  to  pick  them, 
and  a  shame  to  leave  them),  and  in  half  an 
hour  we  were  driving  homeward,  our  day's 
work  done ;  while  my  seatmate,  who,  besides 
being  preacher,  lawyer,  surveyor,  and  farmer, 
was  also  a  mystic  and  a  saint,  —  though  he 
would  have  refused  the  word,  —  fell  into  a 
strain   of   reminiscence,  appropriate  to  the 
hour,  about  the  inner  life  of   the  soul,  its 
hopes,  its  struggles,  and  its  joys.     I  listened 
in  reverent   silence.     The  passion  for   per- 
fection  is   not   yet   so  common  as  to  have 
become  commonplace,  and  one  need  not  be 
certain  of   a  theory  in   order   to   admire  a 
practice.     He  had  already  told  me  who  his 
father  was,  and  I  had  ceased  to  wonder  at 
his  using  now  and  then  a  choice  phrase. 

My  friend  (he  will  allow  me  that  word,  I 
am  sure)  had  given  me  a  day  of  days,  and 
with  it  a  new  idea  of  this  mountain  world ; 
where  the   visitor   finds   hills   and  valleys, 


178      A   WEEK  ON   WALBEN'S  RIDGE. 

creeks  and  waterfalls,  tlie  most  beautiful  of 
forests,  with  clearings,  isolated  cabins,  strag- 
gling settlements,  orchards,  and  gardens, 
and  where  he  forgets  again  and  again  that 
he  is  on  a  mountain  at  all.  Even  now  I  had 
seen  but  a  corner  of  it,  as  I  have  seen  but  a 
corner  of  the  larger  world  on  which,  for 
these  few  years  back,  I  have  had  what  I  call 
my  existence.  And  even  of  what  I  sav/, 
much  has  gone  undescribed :  stately  tulip- 
trees  deep  in  the  forest,  with  humming-birds 
darting  from  flower  to  flower  among  them ; 
the  flame-colored  azalea ;  the  ground  flowers 
of  the  woods,  including  some  tiny  yellow 
lady's  -  slippers,  too  dainty  for  the  foot  of 
Cinderella  herself;  the  road  to  Sawyer's 
Springs ;  and  numbers  of  birds,  whose  names, 
even,  I  have  omitted.  It  was  a  wonderful 
world ;  but  if  the  hobbyist  may  take  the  pen 
for  a  single  sentence,  it  may  stand  confessed 
that  the  greatest  wonder  of  all  was  this,  — 
that  in  all  those  miles  of  oak  forest  I  found 
not  one  blue  jay. 

Another  surprising  circumstance,  which  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  noticed,  however, 
till  my  attention  was  somewhat  rudely  called 
to   it,  was  the   absence  of   colored  people. 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.     179 

With  the  exception  of  three  servants  at  the 
hotel,  I  saw  none  but  whites.  Walden's 
Riclge,  although  stanchly  Union  in  war-time, 
and  largely  Eepublican  now,  as  I  was  told, 
is  a  white  man's  country.  I  had  gone  to 
bed  one  night,  and  was  fast  asleep,  when  I 
was  wakened  suddenly  by  the  noise  of  some 
one  hurrying  up  the  stairs  and  shouting, 
"  Where's  the  gun  ?  Where's  the  gun  ? 
Shorty's  been  shot!"  "Shorty"  was  the 
colored  waiter,  and  the  speaker  was  a  gen- 
eral factotum,  an  English  boy.  The  colored 
people  —  Shorty,  his  wife,  and  the  cook  — 
had  been  out  on  the  edge  of  the  woods  be- 
hind the  house,  when  three  men  had  fired 
at  them,  or  pretended  to  do  so.  It  was  ex- 
plained the  next  morning  that  this  was  only 
an  attempt  (on  the  part  of  some  irresponsible 
young  men,  as  the  older  residents  said)  to 
"  run  the  niggers  off  the  mountain,"  —  after 
what  I  understood  to  be  a  somewhat  regular 
custom.  "  Niggers  "  did  not  belong  there ; 
their  place  was  down  below.  If  a  Chat- 
tanooga cottager  brought  up  a  colored  ser- 
vant, he  was  "  respectfully  requested  "  to  send 
him  back,  and  save  the  natives  the  trouble 
of  attending  to  the  matter.     In  short,  the 


180     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  BIBGE. 

Eiclgites  appeared  to  look  upon  "  niggers  " 
as  Northern  laborers  look  upon  non-union 
men  —  "  scabs." 

The  hotel-keeper,  an  Englishman,  with  an 
Englishman's  notions  about  personal  rights, 
was  naturally  indignant.  He  would  hire  his 
own  servants,  or  he  would  shut  the  house. 
In  any  event,  the  presence  of  "  Whitecaps," 
real  or  imaginary,  must  affect  his  summer 
patronage.  I  fully  expected  to  see  the  col- 
ored trio  pack  up  and  go  back  to  Chatta- 
nooga, without  waiting  for  further  hints; 
but  they  showed  no  disposition  to  do  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  and,  I  must  add,  rose  in 
my  estimation  accordingly. 

Of  the  feeling  of  the  community  I  had  a 
slight  but  ludicrous  intimation  a  day  or  two 
after  the  shooting.  I  passed  a  boy  whom  I 
had  noticed  in  the  road,  some  days  before, 
playing  with  a  pig,  lifting  him  by  the  hind 
legs  and  pitching  him  over  forwards.  "  He 
can  turn  a  somerset  good,"  he  had  said  to  me, 
as  I  passed.  Now,  for  the  sake  of  being 
neighborly,  I  asked,  "How's  the  pig  to- 
day?" He  smiled,  and  made  some  reply, 
as  if  he  appreciated  the  pleasantry ;  but  a 
more  serious-looking  playmate  took  up  his 


A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE.      181 

parable,  and  said,  "  The  pig  '11  be  all  right, 
if  the  folks  up  at  the  hotel  don't  shoot  him." 
His  tone  and  look  were  intended  to  be 
deeply  significant.  "  Oh,  I  know  you,"  they 
implied:  "you  are  up  at  the  hotel,  where 
they  threaten  to  shoot  white  folks." 

For  my  last  afternoon  —  wars  and  rumors 
of  wars  long  since  forgotten  —  I  went  to  the 
place  that  had  pleased  me  first,  the  valley 
of  Falling  Water  Creek.  The  cross-vine  on 
the  dead  hemlock  had  by  this  time  dropped 
the  greater  part  of  its  bells,  but  even  yet 
many  were  hanging  from  the  up23ermost 
branches.  The  rhododendron  was  still  at 
the  height  of  its  splendor.  All  the  gardens 
were  nothing  to  it,  I  said  to  myseK.  Cross- 
ing the  creek  on  the  log,  and  the  branch  on 
stepping-stones,  I  went  to  quench  my  thirst 
at  the  Marshall  Spring,  which  once  had  a 
cabin  beside  it,  and  frequent  visitors,  but 
now  was  clogged  with  fallen  leaves  and 
seemingly  abandoned.  It  was  perhaps  more 
beautiful  so.  Directly  behind  it  rose  a  steep 
bank,  and  in  front  stood  an  oak  and  a 
maple,  the  latter  leaning  toward  it  and  form- 
ing a  pointed  arch,  —  a  worthy  entrance. 
Mossy  stones  walled  it  in,  and  ferns  grew 


182     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  RIDGE. 

luxuriantly  about  it.  Just  over  them,  an 
azalea  still  held  two  fresh  pink  flowers,  the 
last  till  another  May.  In  such  a  spot  it 
would  have  been  easy  to  grow  sentimental ; 
but  there  came  a  rumbling  of  thunder,  the 
sky  darkened,  and,  with  a  final  hasty  look 
about  me,  I  picked  up  my  umbrella  and 
started  homeward. 

My  last  walk  had  ended  like  many  others 
in  that  showery,  fragmentary  week.  But 
what  is  bad  weather  when  the  time  is  past  ? 
All  those  black  clouds  have  left  no  shadow 
on  Walden's  Eidge,  and  the  best  of  all  my 
strolls  beside  Falling  Water,  a  stroll  not  yet 
finished, 

"  The  calm  sense  of  seen  beauty  without  sight," 

suffers  no  harm.  As  Thoreau  says,  "  It  is 
after  we  get  home  that  we  really  go  over  the 
mountain." 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

Whoever  loves  the  music  of  English 
sparrows  should  live  in  Chattanooga ;  there 
is  no  place  on  the  planet,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
where  they  are  more  numerous  and  perva- 
sive. Mocking-birds  are  scarce.  To  the 
best  of  my  recollection,  I  saw  none  in  the 
city  itself,  and  less  than  half  a  dozen  in  the 
surrounding  country.  A  young  gentleman 
whom  I  questioned  upon  the  subject  told  me 
that  they  used  to  be  common,  and  attributed 
their  present  increasing  rarity  to  the  perse- 
cution of  boys,  who  find  a  profit  in  selling 
the  young  into  captivity.  Their  place,  in 
the  city  especially,  is  taken  by  catbirds; 
interesting,  imitative,  and  in  their  own 
measure  tuneful,  but  poor  substitutes  for 
mocking-birds.  In  fact,  that  is  a  role  which 
it  is  impossible  to  think  of  any  bird  as  really 
filling.  The  brown  thrush,  it  is  true,  sings 
quite  in  the  mocking-bird's  manner,  and,  to 
my  ear,  almost  or  quite  as  well;  but  he 
possesses  no  gift  as  a  mimic,  and  further- 


184     SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

more,  without  being  exactly  a  bird  of  the 
forest  or  the  wilderness,  is  instinctively  and 
irreclaimably  a  recluse.  It  would  be  hard, 
even  among  human  beings,  to  find  a  nature 
less  touched  with  urbanity.  In  the  mock- 
ing-bird the  elements  are  more  happily 
mingled.  Not  gregarious,  intolerant  of 
rivalry,  and,  as  far  as  creatures  of  his  own 
kind  are  concerned,  a  stickler  for  elbow- 
room,  —  sharing  with  his  brown  relative  in 
that  respect,  —  he  is  at  the  same  time  a 
born  citizen  and  neighbor ;  as  fond  of  gar- 
dens and  dooryard  trees  as  the  thrasher  is 
of  scrublands  and  barberry  bushes.  "  Man 
delights  me,"  he  might  say,  "  and  woman 
also."  He  likes  to  be  listened  to,  it  is 
pretty  certain;  and  possibly  he  is  dimly 
aware  of  the  artistic  value  of  appreciation, 
without  which  no  artist  ever  did  his  best. 
Add  to  this  endearing  social  quality  the 
splendor  and  freedom  of  the  mocker's  vocal 
performances,  multifarious,  sensational,  in- 
comparable, by  turns  entrancing  and  amus- 
ing, and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  he  has 
come  to  hold  a  place  by  himself  in  Southern 
sentiment  and  literature.  A  city  without 
mocking-birds  is  only  half  Southern,  though 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.     185 

black  faces  be  never  so  tliick  upon  tlie  side- 
walks and  mules  never  so  common  in  the 
streetSo  If  the  boys  have  driven  the  great 
mimic  away  from  Chattanooga,  it  is  time 
the  fathers  took  the  boys  in  hand.  Civic 
pride  alone  ought  to  bring  this  about,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  possible  effect  upon  real 
estate  values  of  the  abundant  and  familiar 
presence  of  this  world-renowned,  town-lov- 
ing, town-charming  songster. 

From  my  window,  on  the  side  of  Cameron 
Hill,  I  heard  daily  the  singing  of  an  orchard 
oriole  —  another  fine  and  neighborly  bird  — 
and  a  golden  warbler,  with  sometimes  the 
fidgety^  fidgety  of  a  Maryland  yellow-throat. 
What  could  he  be  fussing  about  in  so 
unlikely  a  quarter?  An  adjoining  yard 
presented  the  unnatural  spectacle  —  unnat- 
ural, but,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  not  unprece- 
dented —  of  a  bird-house  occupied  in  part- 
nership by  purple  martins  and  English 
sparrows.  They  had  finished  their  quarrels, 
if  they  had  ever  had  any,  —  which  can 
hardly  be  open  to  doubt,  both  native  and 
foreigner  being  constitutionally  belligerent, 
—  and  frequently  sat  side  by  side  upon  the 
ridge-pole,  like   the   best  of  friends.     The 


186      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

oftener  I  saw  them  there,  the  more  indig- 
nant I  became  at  the  martins'  un-American 
behavior.  Such  a  disgraceful  surrender  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  too  much  even  for 
a  man  of  peace.  I  have  never  called  myself 
a  Jingo,  but  for  once  it  would  have  done  me 
good  to  see  the  lion's  tail  twisted. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  pairs  of 
rough-wings  on  Missionary  Eidge,  the  mar- 
tins seemed  to  be  the  only  swallows  in  the 
country  at  that  time  of  the  year ;  and 
though  Progne  suhis,  in  spite  of  an  occa- 
sional excess  of  good  nature,  is  a  most  noble 
bird,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  by 
itself  it  constituted  but  a  meagre  represen- 
tation of  an  entire  family.  SwaUows  are 
none  too  numerous  in  Massachusetts,  in 
these  days,  and  are  pretty  certainly  growing 
fewer  and  fewer,  what  with  the  prevalence 
of  the  box  -  monopolizing  European  spar- 
row, and  the  passing  of  the  big,  old-fash- 
ioned, widely  ventilated  barn ;  for  there  is 
no  member  of  the  family,  not  even  the  sand 
martin,  whose  distribution  does  not  depend 
in  great  degree  upon  human  agency.  Even 
yet,  however,  if  a  Massachusetts  man  will 
make  a  circuit  of  a  few  miles,  he  will  usually 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBD  NOTES,     187 

meet  with  tree  swallows,  barn  swallows,  cliff 
swallows,  sand  martins,  and  purple  martins. 
In  other  words,  he  need  not  go  far  to  find 
all  the  species  of  eastern  North  America, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  least  attrac- 
tive of  the  six ;  that  is  to  say,  the  rough- 
wing.  As  compared  with  the  people  of 
eastern  Tennessee,  then,  we  are  still  pretty 
well  favored.  It  is  worth  while  to  travel 
now  and  then,  if  only  to  find  ourselves  better 
off  at  home. 

It  might  be  easy  to  suggest  plausible 
reasons  for  the  general  absence  of  swallows 
from  a  country  like  that  about  Chattanooga ; 
but  the  extraordinary  scarcity  of  hawks, 
while  many  persons  —  not  ornithologists  — 
would  account  it  less  of  a  calamity,  is  more 
of  a  puzzle.  From  Walden's  Ridge  I  saw 
a  single  sparrow  hawk  and  a  single  red-tail ; 
in  addition  to  which  I  remember  three  birds 
whose  identity  I  could  not  determine.  Five 
hawks  in  the  course  of  three  weeks  spent 
entirely  out  of  doors,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
mountains  covered  with  old  forest !  Taken 
by  itself,  this  unexpected  showing  might 
have  been  ascribed  to  some  queer  combina- 
tion of  accidents,  or  to  a  failure  of  observa- 


188      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

tion.  In  fact,  I  was  inclined  so  to  explain 
it  till  I  noticed  that  Mr.  Brewster  liad 
chronicled  a  similar  state  of  things  in  what 
is  substantially  the  same  piece  of  country. 
Writing  of  western  North  Carolina,  he 
says  :  ^  "  The  general  scarcity  —  one  may 
almost  say  absence  —  of  hawks  in  this  re- 
gion during  the  breeding  season  is  simply 
imaccountable.  Small  birds  and  mammals, 
lizards,  snakes,  and  other  animals  upon 
which  the  various  species  subsist  are  every- 
where numerous,  the  country  is  wild  and 
heavily  forested,  and,  in  short,  all  the  neces- 
sary conditions  of  environment  seem  to  be 
fulfilled."  Certainly,  so  far  as  my  ingenuity 
goes,  the  mystery  is  "  unaccountable ;  "  but 
of  course,  like  every  other  mystery,  it  would 
open  quickly  enough  if  we  could  find  the 
key. 

Turkey  vultures  were  moderately  nu- 
merous, —  much  less  abundant  than  in 
Florida,  —  and  twice  I  saw  a  single  black 
vulture,  recognizable,  almost  as  far  as  it 
could  be  seen  (but  I  do  not  mean  at  a  first 
glance,  nor  without  due  precaution  against 
foreshortened  effects),  by  its  docked  tail. 

The  Auk,  vol.  iii.  p.  103. 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.     189 

Both  are  invaluable  in  their  place, — useful, 
graceful,  admirable,  and  disgusting.  The 
vultures,  the  martins,  and  the  swifts  were 
the  only  common  aerial  birds.  The  swifts, 
happily,  were  everywhere,  —  jovial  souls  in 
a  sooty  dress,  —  and  had  already  begun 
nest-building.  I  saw  them  continually  pull- 
ing up  against  the  twigs  of  a  partially  dead 
tree  near  my  window.  In  them  nature  has 
developed  the  bird  idea  to  its  extreme,  — 
a  pair  of  wings,  with  just  body  enough  for 
ballast ;  like  a  racing-yacht,  built  for  no- 
thing but  to  carry  sail  and  avoid  resistance. 
Their  flight  is  a  good  visual  music,  as 
Emerson  might  have  said ;  but  I  love  also 
their  quick,  eager  notes,  like  the  sounds  of 
children  at  play.  And  while  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  Tennessee,  I  am  prompted  to 
mention  here  a  bird  of  this  species  that  I 
once  saw  in  northern  New  Hampshire  on 
the  1st  of  October,  —  an  extraordinarily 
late  date,  if  my  experience  counts  for  any- 
thing. With  a  friend  I  had  made  an  ascent 
of  Mount  Lafayette  (one  of  the  days  of  a 
man's  life),  and  as  we  came  near  the  Profile 
House,  on  our  return  to  the  valley,  there 
passed    overhead   a   single   chimney   swift. 


190      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

What  he  could  be  doing  there  at  that  season 
was  more  than  either  of  us  could  divine.  It 
was  impossible  to  feel  any  great  concern 
about  him,  however.  The  afternoon  was 
nearly  done,  but  at  the  rate  he  was  traveling 
it  seemed  as  if  he  might  be  in  Mexico  before 
sunrise.  And  easily  enough  he  may  have 
been,  if  Mr.  Gatke  is  right  in  his  contention 
that  birds  of  very  moderate  powers  of  wing 
are  capable  of  flying  all  night  at  the  rate  of 
four  miles  a  minute  ! 

The  comparative  scarcity  of  crows  about 
Chattanooga,  and  the  amazing  dearth  of 
jays  in  the  oak  forest  of  Walden's  Ridge, 
have  been  touched  u]3on  elsewhere.  As  for 
the  jays,  their  absence  must  have  been  more 
apparent  than  real,  I  am  bound  to  believe. 
It  was  their  silent  time,  probably.  Still 
another  thing  that  I  found  surprising  was 
the  small  number  of  woodpeckers.  For  the 
first  four  days  I  saw  not  a  single  repre- 
sentative of  the  family.  It  would  be  next 
to  impossible  to  be  so  much  out  of  doors  in 
Massachusetts  at  any  season  of  the  year 
with  a  like  result.  During  my  three  weeks 
in  Tennessee  I  saw  eight  flickers,  seven 
hairy  woodpeckers,  two  red-heads,  and  two 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.       191 

or  three  red-cockaded  woodpeckers,  besides 
whick  I  heard   one   downy  and  one    "log- 
cock."     The  last-named  bird,  which  is  big 
enough   for   even   the    careless    to   notice, 
seemed  to  be  well  known  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Walden's  Eidge,  where  I  heard  it.     By 
what  they  told  me,  it  should  be  fairly  com- 
mon, but  I  saw  nothing  of  its  "  peck-holes." 
The  first  of  my  two  red-headed  woodpeckers 
was  near   the   base    of   Missionary   Kidge, 
wasting  his  time  in  exploring  pole  after  pole 
along  the  railway.     Did  he  mistake  them 
for  so  many   dead   trees  still  standing   on 
their  own  roots?     Dry  and  seemingly  unde- 
cayed,  they  appeared  to  me  to  offer  small 
encouragement  to  a  grub-seeker ;  but  prob- 
ably the  fellow  knew  his  own  business  best. 
On  questions    of    economic    entomology,  I 
fear  I  should  prove  but  a  lame  adviser  for 
the  most   benighted  woodpecker  that   ever 
drummed.     And  yet,  being  a  man,  I  could 
not  help   feeling   that   this   particular  red- 
head was  behaving  uncommonly  like  a  fool. 
Was  there  ever  a  man  who  did  not  take  it 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should  be  wiser 
than  the  "  lower  animals  "  ? 

Humming-birds  cut  but  a  small  figure  in 


192      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

my  daily  notes  till  I  went  to  Walden's 
Ridge.  There,  in  the  forest,  they  were 
noticeably  abundant,  —  for  humming-birds, 
that  is  to  say.  It  seemed  to  be  the  time  of 
pairing  with  them  ;  more  than  once  the  two 
sexes  were  seen  together,  —  an  unusual 
occurrence,  unless  my  observation  has  been 
unfortunate,  after  the  nest  is  built,  or  even 
while  it  is  building.  One  female  piqued  my 
curiosity  by  returning  again  and  again  to 
the  bole  of  an  oak,  hovering  before  it  as 
before  a  flower,  and  more  than  once  clinging 
to  its  rough  upright  surface.  At  first  I 
took  it  for  granted  that  she  was  picking 
off  bits  of  lichen  with  which  to  embellish 
the  outer  wall  of  her  nest ;  but  after  each 
browsing  she  alighted  here  or  there  on  a 
leafless  twig.  If  she  had  been  gathering 
nest  material,  she  would  have  flown  away 
with  it,  I  thought. 

At  another  time,  in  a  tangle  of  shrubbery, 
I  witnessed  a  most  lively  encounter  between 
two  humming-birds  ;  a  case  of  fighting  or 
love-making,  —  two  things  confusingly  alike 
to  an  outsider,  —  in  the  midst  of  which  one 
of  the  contestants  suddenly*  displayed  so 
dazzling   a  gorget   that    for    an   instant   I 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.       193 

mistook  it  for  a  scarlet  flower.  I  did  not 
"  wipe  my  eye,"  not  being  a  poet,  nor  even 
a  "  rash  gazer,"  but  I  admired  anew  the 
wonderful  flashing  jewel,  now  coal-black, 
now  flaming  red,  with  which,  perhaps,  the 
male  ruby-throat  blinds  his  long-suffering 
mate  to  all  his  shameful  treatment  of  her 
in  her  season  of  watchfulness  and  motherly 
anxiety.  Does  she  never  remind  him,  I 
wonder,  that  there  are  some  things  whose 
price  is  far  above  rubies?  I  had  never 
seen  the  humming-bird  so  much  a  forest- 
dweller  as  here,  and  gladly  confessed  that 
I  had  never  seen  him  when  he  looked  so 
romantically  at  home  and  in  place.  The 
tulip-trees,  in  particular,  might  have  been 
made  on  purpose  for  him. 

As  the  Chattanooga  neighborhood  was 
poorly  supplied  with  hawks,  woodpeckers, 
and  swallows,  so  was  it  likewise  with  spar- 
rows, though  in  a  less  marked  degree.  The 
common  species  —  the  only  resident  species 
that  I  met  with,  but  my  explorations  were 
nothing  like  complete  —  were  chippers,  field 
sparrows,  and  Bachman  sparrows ;  the  first 
interesting  for  their  familiarity,  the  other 
two  for  their  musical  gifts.     In  a  compari- 


194      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

son  between  eastern  Tennessee  —  as  I  saw 
it  —  and  eastern  Massacliusetts,  the  Bach- 
man  sparrow  must  be  set  against  the  song 
sparrow,  the  vesper  sparrow,  and  the  swamp 
sparrow.  It  is  a  brilliant  and  charming 
songster,  one  of  the  very  finest ;  but  it 
would  be  too  costly  a  bargain  to  buy  its 
presence  with  loss  of  the  song  sparrow's 
abounding  versatility  and  high  spirits,  and 
the  vesper  sparrow's  unfailing  sweetness, 
serenity,  and  charm. 

So  much  for  the  sparrows,  commonly  so 
called.  If  we  come  to  the  family  as  a  whole, 
the  goodly  family  of  sparrows  and  finches, 
we  miss  in  Tennessee  the  rose-breasted  gros- 
beak and  the  purple  finch,  two  of  our  best 
esteemed  Massachusetts  birds,  both  for 
music  and  for  beauty;  to  ojffset  which  we 
have  the  cardinal  grosbeak,  whose  whistle  is 
exquisite,  but  who  can  hardly  be  ranked  as 
a  singer  above  either  the  rose-breast  or  the 
linnet,  to  say  nothing  of  the  two  combined. 

At  the  season  of  my  visit,  —  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  vernal  migration,  —  the  prepon- 
derance of  w^oodland  birds,  especially  of  the 
birds  known  as  wood  warblers,  was  very 
striking.     Of  ninety-three  species  observed, 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.     195 

twenty-eight  belonged  to  tlie  warbler  family. 
In  this  list  it  was  curious  to  remark  the 
absence  of  the  Nashville  and  the  Tennessee. 
The  circumstance  is  significant  of  the  com- 
parative worthlessness  —  except  from  a  his- 
torical point  of  view  —  of  locality  names  as 
they  are  applied  to  American  birds  in  gen- 
eral. Here  were  Maryland  yellow-throats, 
Cape  May  warblers,  Canada  warblers,  Ken- 
tucky warblers,  prairie  warblers,  palm  war- 
blers, Acadian  flycatchers,  but  not  the  two 
birds  (the  only  two,  as  well  as  I  remem- 
ber) that  bear  Tennessee  names.^  The 
absence  of  the  Nashville  was  a  matter  of 
wonderment  to  me.  Dr.  Eives,  I  have  since 
noticed,  records  it  as  only  a  rare  migrant 
in  Virginia.  Yet  by  some  route  it  reaches 
eastern  New  England  in  decidedly  handsome 
numbers.  Its  congener,  the  blue  golden- 
wing,  surprised  me  in  an  opposite  direction, 
—  by   its   commonness,  both   in    the   lower 

1  Both  these  warblers  —  the  Nashville  and  the  Tennes- 
see —  were  named  by  Wilson  from  the  places  where  the 
original  specimens  were  shot.  Concerning-  the  Tennessee 
warbler  he  sets  down  the  opinion  that "  it  is  most  prob- 
ably a  native  of  a  more  southerly  climate."  It  would  be 
a  pity  for  men  to  cease  guessing",  though  the  shrewdest 
are  certain  to  be  sometimes  wrong. 


196      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

country  near  tlie  river  and  on  Walden's 
Ridge.  This,  too,  is  a  rare  bird  in  Virginia ; 
so  much  so  that  Dr.  Rives  has  never  met 
with  it  there.  In  certain  places  about  Chat- 
tanooga it  was  as  common  as  it  is  locally  in 
the  towns  about  Boston,  where,  to  satisfy  a 
skeptical  friend,  I  once  counted  eleven  males 
in  song  in  the  course  of  a  morning's  walk. 
That  the  Chattanooga  birds  were  on  their 
breeding  grounds  I  had  at  the  time  no  ques- 
tion, although  I  happened  upon  no  proof  of 
the  fact. 

In  the  same  way,  from  the  manner  in 
which  the  oven-birds  were  scattered  over 
Walden's  Ridge  in  the  middle  of  May,  I 
assumed,  rather  hastily,  that  they  were  at 
home  for  the  summer.  Months  afterward, 
however,  happening  to  notice  their  southern 
breeding  limits  as  given  by  the  best  of 
authorities,  —  "  breeding  from  .  .  .  Virginia 
northward,"  —  I  saw  that  I  might  easily 
have  been  in  error.  I  wrote,  therefore,  to 
a  Chattanooga  gentleman,  who  pays  atten- 
tion to  birds  while  disclaiming  acquaintance 
with  ornithology,  and  he  replied  that  if  the 
oven-bird  summered  in  that  country  he  did 
not  know  it.     The  case  seemed  to  be  going 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.     197 

against  me,  but  I  bethought  myself  of  Mr. 
Brewster's  "  Ornithological  Reconnaissance 
in  Western  North  Carolina,"  and  there  I 
read,^  "  The  open  oak  woodlands,  so  preva- 
lent in  this  region,  are  in  every  way  adapted 
to  the  requirements  of  the  oven-bird,  and 
throughout  them  it  is  one  of  the  common- 
est and  most  characteristic  summer  birds." 
"  Open  oak  woodlands  "  is  exactly  descrip- 
tive of  the  Walden's  Ridge  forest ;  and  east- 
ern Tennessee  and  western  North  Carolina 
being  practically  one,  I  resume  my  assured 
belief  (personal  and  of  no  authority)  that 
the  birds  I  saw  and  heard  were,  as  I  first 
thought,  natives  of  the  mountain.  Birds 
which  are  at  home  have,  as  a  rule,  an  air 
of  being  at  home ;  a  certain  manner  hard 
to  define,  but  felt,  nevertheless,  as  a  pretty 
strong  kind  of  evidence  —  not  proof  —  by  a 
practiced  observer. 

Several  of  the  more  northern  species  of 
the  warbler  family  manifested  an  almost  ex- 
clusive preference  for  patches  of  evergreens. 
I  have  elsewhere  detailed  my  experience  in 
a  grove  of  stunted  pines  on  Lookout  Moun- 
tain. A  similar  growth  is  found  on  Cam- 
^  The  Auk,  vol.  iii.  p.  175. 


198      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

eron  Hill,  —  in  the  city  of  Chattanooga,  — 
one  side  of  which  is  occu]3ied  by  dwellings, 
while  the  other  drops  to  the  river  so  precipi- 
tously as  to  be  almost  inaccessible,  and  is 
even  yet,  I  was  told,  an  abode  of  foxes.  On 
the  day  after  my  arrival  I  strolled  to  the 
top  of  the  hill  toward  evening,  and  in  the 
pines  found  a  few  black -polls  and  yellow- 
rumps.  I  was  in  a  listless  mood,  having 
already  taken  a  fair  day's  exercise  under  an 
intolerable  sun,  but  I  waked  up  with  a  start 
when  my  glass  fell  on  a  bird  which  at  a 
second  glance  showed  the  red  cheeks  of  a 
Cape  May  warbler.  For  a  moment  I  was 
almost  in  poor  Susan's  case,  — 

"  I  looked,  and  my  heart  was  in  heaven." 

Then,  all  too  soon,  as  happened  to  poor 
Susan  also,  the  vision  faded.  But  I  had 
seen  it.  Yes,  here  it  was  in  Tennessee,  the 
rarity  for  which,  spring  after  spring,  I  had 
been  so  many  years  on  the  watch.  I  had 
come  South  to  find  it,  after  all,  —  a  bird 
that  breeds  from  the  northern  border  of  New 
England  to  Hudson's  Bay  ! 

It  is  of  the  nature  of  such  excitements 
that,  at  the  time,  the  subject  of  them  has  no 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.       199 

thought  of  analyzing  or  justifying  his  emo- 
tions. He  is  better  employed.  Afterward, 
in  some  vacant  mood,  with  no  longer  any- 
thing actively  to  enjoy,  he  may  play  with 
the  past,  and  from  an  evil  habit,  or  flatter- 
ing himself  with  a  show  of  intellectuality, 
may  turn  his  former  delight  into  a  study ; 
tickling  his  jiresent  conceit  of  himself  by 
smiling  at  the  man  he  used  to  be.  How 
very  wise  he  has  grown,  to  be  sure  !  All 
such  refinements,  nevertheless,  if  he  did  but 
know  it,  are  only  a  poorer  kind  of  child's 
play ;  less  spontaneous,  infinitely  less  satis- 
fying, and  equally  irrational.  Ecstasy  is 
not  to  be  assayed  by  any  test  that  the  rea- 
son is  competent  to  apply  ;  nor  does  it  need 
either  defense  or  apology.  It  is  its  own 
end,  and  so,  like  beauty,  its  own  excuse  for 
being.  That  is  one  of  the  crowning  felici- 
ties of  this  present  order  of  things,  —  the 
world,  as  we  call  it.  What  dog  would  hunt 
if  there  were  no  excitement  in  overhaulino: 
the  game  ?  And  how  would  elderly  people 
live  through  long  evenings  if  there  were  no 
exhilaration  in  the  odd  trick  ? 

"  What   good   does   it   do  ? "    a   prudent 
friend  and  adviser  used  to  say  to  me,  smiling 


200      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

at  tlie  fervor  of  my  first  ornitliological  en- 
thusiasm. He  thought  he  was  asking  me 
a  poser ;  but  I  answered  gayly,  "  It  makes 
me  happy ;  "  and  taking  things  as  they  run, 
happiness  is  a  pretty  substantial  "good." 
So  was  it  now  with  the  sight  of  this  long- 
desired  warbler.  It  taught  me  nothing ;  it 
put  nothing  into  my  pocket;  but  it  made 
me  happy,  —  happy  enough  to  sing  and 
shout,  though  I  am  ashamed  to  say  I  did 
neither.  And  even  a  sober  son  of  the  Puri- 
tans may  be  glad  to  find  himself,  in  some 
unexpected  hour,  almost  as  ineffably  de- 
lighted as  he  used  to  be  with  a  new  plaything 
in  the  time  when  he  had  not  yet  tasted  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  knew  not  that 
the  relish  for  playthings  could  ever  be  out- 
grown. I  cannot  affirm  that  I  went  quite 
as  wild  over  my  first  Cape  May  warbler  as 
I  did  over  my  first  sled  (how  well  the  rapture 
of  that  frosty  midwinter  morning  is  remem- 
bered, —  a  hard  crust  on  the  snow,  and  the 
sun  not  yet  risen!),  but  I  came  as  near  to 
that  state  of  heavenly  felicity  —  to  reenter 
which  we  must  become  as  little  children  — 
as  a  person  of  my  years  is  ever  likely  to  do, 
perhaps. 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.      201 

It  is  one  precious  advantage  of  natural 
history  studies  that  they  afford  endless  op- 
portunities for  a  man  to  enjoy  himself  in 
this  sweetly  childish  spirit,  while  at  the  same 
time  his  occupation  is  dignified  by  a  certain 
scientific  atmosphere  and  relationship.  He 
is  a  collector  of  insects,  let  us  say.  Whether 
he  goes  to  the  Adirondacks  for  the  summer, 
or  to  Florida  for  the  winter,  he  is  surrounded 
with  nets  and  cyanide  bottles.  He  travels 
with  them  as  another  travels  with  packs  of 
cards.  Every  day's  catch  is  part  of  the 
game ;  and  once  in  a  while,  as  happened  to 
me  on  Cameron  Hill,  he  gets  a  "  great  hand," 
and  in  imagination,  at  least,  sweeps  the 
board.  Commonplace  people  smile  at  him, 
no  doubt;  but  that  is  only  amusing,  and 
he  smiles  in  turn.  He  can  tell  many  good 
stories  under  that  head.  He  delights  to  be 
called  a  "  crank."  It  is  all  because  of  peo- 
ple's ignorance.  They  have  no  idea  that  he 
is  Mr.  So-and-So,  the  entomologist ;  that  he 
is  in  correspondence  with  learned  men  the 
country  over ;  that  he  once  discovered  a  new 
coclo"oach,  and  has  had  a  grasshopper  named 
after  him ;  that  he  has  written  a  book,  or  is 
going  to  write  one.     Happy  man !  a  contrib- 


202      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

utor  to  tlie  world's  knowledge,  but  a  pleasure- 
seeker  ;  a  little  of  a  savant,  and  very  muck 
of  a  cliild ;  a  favorite  of  Heaven,  wkose  work 
is  play.  No  wonder  it  is  commonly  said 
tkat  natural  historians  are  a  cheerful  set. 

For  the  supplying  of  rarities  and  surprises 
there  are  no  birds  like  the  warblers.  Their 
pursuit  is  the  very  spice  of  American  orni- 
thology. The  multitude  of  species  (Mr. 
Chapman's  "Handbook  of  the  Birds  of  East- 
ern North  America"  enumerates  forty-five 
species  and  sub-species)  is  of  itself  an  incal- 
culable blessing  in  this  respect.  No  single 
observer  is  likely  ever  to  come  to  the  end  of 
them.  They  do  not  warble,  it  must  be  owned, 
and  few  of  them  have  much  distinction  as 
singers,  the  best  that  I  know  being  the 
black-throated  green  and  the  Kentucky ;  but 
they  are  elegant  and  varied  in  their  plumage, 
with  no  lack  of  bright  tints,  while  their 
extreme  activity  and  their  largely  arboreal 
habits  render  their  specific  determination  and 
their  individual  study  a  work  most  agreeably 
difficult  and  tantalizing.  The  ornithologist 
who  has  seen  all  the  warblers  of  his  own 
territory,  say  of  New  England,  and  knows 
them  all  by  their  notes,  and  has  found  all 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.      203 

their  nests,  —  well,  he  is  himself    a  pretty 
rare  specimen. 

As  for  my  experience  with  the  family  in 
Tennessee,  I  was  glad,  of  course,  to  scrape 
acquaintance  —  or  to  renew  it,  as  the  case 
might  be  —  with  the  more  southern  species, 
the  Kentucky,  the  hooded,  the  cerulean,  the 
blue-wing,  and  the  yellow-throat:  that  was 
partly  why  I  was  here ;  but  perhaps  I  en- 
joyed quite  as  keenly  the  sight  of  our  own 
New  England  birds  moving  homeward ;  tar- 
rying here  and  there  for  a  day,  but  not  to 
be  tempted  by  all  the  allurements  of  this 
fine  country;  still  pushing  on,  northward, 
and  still  northward,  as  if  for  them  there 
were  no  place  in  the  world  but  the  woods 
where  they  were  born.  Of  the  southern 
species  just  named,  the  Kentucky  was  the 
most  abundant,  with  the  hooded  not  far  be- 
hind. The  prairie  warbler  seemed  about  as 
common  here  as  in  its  favored  Massachu- 
setts haunts  ;  but  unless  my  ear  was  at  fault 
its  song  went  somewhat  less  trippingly:  it 
sounded  labored,  —  too  much  like  the  scarlet 
tanager's  in  the  way  of  effort  and  jerkiness. 
Unlike  the  golden  warbler,  the  prairie  was 
found  not  only  in  the  lower  country,  but  — 


204     SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

in  less  numbers  —  on  Walden's  Kidge.  The 
two  warblers  that  I  listed  every  day,  no 
matter  wbere  I  went,  were  the  chat  and  the 
black-and-white  creeper. 

When  all  is  said,  the  Kentucky,  with  its 
beauty  and  its  song,  is  the  star  of  the  family, 
as  far  as  eastern  Tennessee  is  concerned.  I 
can  hear  it  now,  while  Falling  Water  goes 
babbling  past  in  the  shade  of  laurel  and 
rhododendron.  As  for  the  chat,  it  was  om- 
nipresent: in  the  valley,  along  the  river,  on 
Missionary  Eidge,  on  Lookout  Mountain, 
on  Walden's  Ridge,  in  the  national  cemetery, 
at  Chickamauga,  —  everywhere,  in  short, 
except  within  the  city  itseK.  In  this  regard 
it  exceeded  the  white-eyed  vireo,  and  even 
the  indigo-bird,  I  think.  Black-polls  were 
seen  daily  up  to  May  13,  after  which  they 
were  missing  altogether.  The  last  Cape 
May  and  the  last  yellows-rump  were  noted  on 
the  8th,  the  last  redstart  and  the  last  palm 
warbler  on  the  11th,  the  last  chestnut-side, 
magnolia,  and  Canadian  warbler  on  the  12th. 
On  the  12th,  also,  I  saw  my  only  Wilson's 
black-cap.  In  my  last  outing,  on  the  18th, 
on  Walden's  Ridge,  I  came  upon  two  Black- 
burnians  in  widely  separate  places.     At  the 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.      205 

time,  I  assumed  them  to  be  migrants,  in  spite 
of  the  date.  One  of  them  was  near  the 
hotel,  on  ground  over  which  I  had  passed 
almost  daily.  Why  they  should  be  so  be- 
hindhand was  more  than  I  could  tell ;  but 
only  the  day  before  I  had  seen  a  thrush 
which  was  either  a  gray-cheek  or  an  olive- 
back,  and  of  course  a  bird  of  passage.  "  The 
flight  of  warblers  did  not  pass  entirely  until 
May  19,"  says  Mr.  Jeffries,  writing  of  what 
he  saw  in  western  North  Carolina.^ 

The  length  of  time  occupied  by  some 
species  in  accomplishing  their  semi-annual 
migration  is  well  known  to  be  very  consid- 
erable, and  is  best  observed  —  in  spring,  at 
least  —  at  some  southern  point.  It  is  admir- 
ably illustrated  in  Mr.  Chapman's  "  List  of 
Birds  seen  at  Gainesville,  Florida."  ^  Tree 
swallows,  he  tells  us,  were  abundant  up  to 
May  6,  a  date  at  which  Massachusetts  tree 
swallows  have  been  at  home  for  nearly  or 
quite  a  month.  Song  sparrows  were  noted 
March  31,  two  or  three  weeks  after  the 
grand  irruption  of  song  sparrows  into 
Massachusetts    usually  occurs.     Bobolinks, 

1  The  Auk,  vol.  vi.  p.  120. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  V.  p.  267. 


206      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

whicli  reach  Massachusetts  by  the  10th  of 
May,  or  earlier,  were  still  very  abundant  — 
both  sexes  —  May  25  !  Such  dates  are  not 
what  we  should  have  expected,  I  suppose, 
especially  in  the  case  of  a  bird  like  the 
bobolink,  which  has  no  very  high  northern 
range  ;  but  they  seem  not  to  be  exceptional, 
and  are  surprising  only  because  we  have  not 
yet  mastered  the  general  subject.  Nothing 
exists  by  itself,  and  therefore  nothing  can 
be  understood  by  itself.  One  thing  the 
most  ignorant  of  us  may  see,  —  that  the 
long  period  covered  by  the  migratory  jour- 
neys is  a  matter  for  ornithological  thankful- 
ness. In  Massachusetts,  for  example,  spring 
migrants  begin  to  appear  in  late  February 
or  early  March,  and  some  of  the  most  inter- 
esting members  of  the  procession  —  notably 
the  mourning  warbler  and  the  yellow-bellied 
flycatcher  —  are  to  be  looked  for  after  the 
first  of  June.  The  autumnal  movement  is 
equally  protracted  ;  so  that  for  at  least  half 
the  year  —  leaving  winter  with  its  arctic 
possibilities  out  of  consideration  —  we  may 
be  on  the  lookout  for  strangers. 

One  of  the  dearest  pleasures  of  a  southern 
trip  in  winter  or  early  spring  is  the  very 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES.     207 

thing  at  wliicli  I  have  just  now  hinted,  the 
sight  of  one's  home  birds  in  strange  sur- 
roundings. You  leave  New  England  in 
early  February,  for  instance,  and  in  two  or 
three  days  are  loitering  in  the  sunny  pine- 
lands  about  St.  Augustine,  with  the  trees 
full  of  robins,  bluebirds,  and  pine  warblers, 
and  the  savanna  patches  full  of  meadow 
larks.  Myrtle  warblers  are  everywhere. 
Phoebes  salute  you  as  you  walk  the  city 
streets,  and  flocks  of  chippers  and  vesper 
sparrows  enliven  the  fields  along  the  country 
roads.  In  a  piece  of  hammock  just  outside 
the  town  you  find  yourself  all  at  once  sur- 
rounded by  a  winter  colony  of  summer  birds. 
Here  are  solitary  vireos,  Maryland  yellow- 
throats,  black-and-white  creepers,  prairie 
warblers,  red-poll  warblers,  hermit  thrushes, 
red-eyed  chewinks,  thrashers,  catbirds,  cedar- 
birds,  and  many  more.  White-eyed  vireos 
are  practicing  in  the  smilax  thickets,  — 
though  they  have  small  need  of  practice,  — 
and  white-bellied  swallows  go  flashing  and 
twittering  overhead.  The  world  is  good, 
you  say,  and  life  is  a  festival. 

My  vacation  in  Tennessee  afforded  less  of 
contrast  and  surprise,  for  a  twofold  reason  : 


208     SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

it  was  near  the  end  of  April,  instead  of  early 
in  February,  so  that  migrants  had  been  arriv- 
ing in  Massachusetts  for  six  or  seven  weeks 
before  my  departure  ;  and  Tennessee  has  no- 
thing of  the  foreign,  half-tropical  look  which 
Florida  presents  to  Yankee  eyes ;  but  even 
so,  it  was  no  small  pleasure  to  step  sud- 
denly into  a  world  full  of  summer  music. 
Such  multitudes  of  birds  as  were  singing 
on  Missionary  Eidge  on  that  first  bright 
forenoon !  The  number  of  species  was  not 
great,  when  it  came  to  counting  them,  — 
morning  and  afternoon  together  yielded  but 
forty-two;  but  the  whole  country  seemed 
alive  with  wings.  And  of  the  forty-two 
species,  thirty-two  were  such  as  summer  in 
Massachusetts  or  pass  through  it  to  their 
homes  beyond.  Here  were  already  (April 
27)  the  olive-backed  thrush,  and  northern 
warblers  like  the  black-poll,  the  bay-breast, 
and  the  Cape  May,  none  of  which  would  be 
due  in  Massachusetts  for  at  least  a  fortnight. 
Here,  too,  were  yellow-rumps  and  white- 
throated  sparrows,  though  the  advance 
guard  of  both  species  had  reached  New  Eng- 
land before  I  left  home.  The  white-throats 
lingered  on  Walden's  Kidge  on  the  13th  of 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.      209 

May,  a  fact  which  surprised  me  more  at  the 
time  than  it  does  in  the  review. 

One  bird  was  seen  on  this  first  day,  and 
not  afterward.  I  had  been  into  the  woods 
north  of  the  city,  and  was  returning,  when 
from  the  bridge  over  the  Tennessee  I  caught 
sight  of  a  small  flock  of  black  birds,  which 
at  first,  even  with  the  aid  of  my  glass,  I 
could  not  make  out,  the  bridge  being  so 
high  above  the  river  and  its  banks.  While 
I  was  watching  them,  however,  they  began 
to  sing.  They  were  bobolinks.  Probably 
the  species  is  not  common  in  eastern  Ten- 
nessee, as  the  name  is  wanting  in  Dr.  Fox's 
"  List  of  Birds  found  in  Roane  County,  Ten- 
nessee, during  April,  1884,  and  March  and 
April,  1885."! 

I  have  ventured  upon  some  slight  orni- 
thological comparison  between  southeastern 
Tennessee  and  eastern  Massachusetts,  and, 
writing  as  a  patriot   (or  a  partisan),  have 

1  The  Auk,  vol.  iii.  p.  315.  Of  sixty-two  species  seen 
by  me  during  the  last  four  days  of  April,  eleven  are  not 
given  by  Dr.  Fox,  namely,  Wilson's  thrush,  black-poll 
warbler,  bay-breasted  warbler,  Cape  May  warbler,  black- 
throated  blue  warbler,  palm  warbler,  chestnut-sided  war- 
bler, blue  golden-winged  warbler,  boboluik,  Acadian  fly- 
catcher, yellow-billed  cuckoo. 


210     SOME  TENNESSEE  BIBB  NOTES. 

seen  to  it  tliat  tlie  scale  inclined  northward. 
To  this  end  I  have  made  as  much  as  possible 
of  the  absence  of  robins,  song  sparrows,  and 
vesper  sparrows,  and  of  the  comparative 
dearth  of  swallows  ;  but  of  course  the  loyal 
Tennessean  is  in  no  want  of  a  ready  answer. 
Robins,  song  sparrows,  vesper  sparrows,  and 
swallows  are  not  absent,  except  as  breeding 
birds.  He  has  them  all  in  their  season,^ 
and  probably  hears  them  sing.  On  the 
whole,  then,  he  may  fairly  retort,  he  has 
considerably  the  advantage  of  us  Yankees : 
he  sees  our  birds  on  their  passage,  and 
drinks  his  fill  of  their  music  before  we  have 
caught  the  first  spring  notes ;  while  we,  on 
the  other  hand,  see  nothing  of  his  distinc- 
tively southern  birds  unless  we  come  South 
for  the  purpose.  Well,  they  are  worth  the 
journey.  Bachman's  finch  alone  —  yes,  the 
one  dingy,  shabbily  clad  little  genius  by 
the  Chickamauga  well  —  might  almost  have 
repaid  me  for  my  thousand  miles  on  the  rail. 

It  was  a  strange  mingling  of  sensations 
that    possessed    me   in    Chattanooga.     The 
city  itself  was  like  other   cities  of   its  age 
1  See  Dr.  Fox's  list. 


SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES.     211 

and  size,  with  some  appearance  of  a  com- 
munity that  had  been  in  haste  to  grow,  —  a 
trifle  impatient,  shall  we  say  (impatience 
being  one  of  the  virtues  of  youth),  to  pull 
down  its  barns  and  build  greater  ;  just  now 
a  little  checked  in  its  ambition,  as  things 
looked;  yet  still  enterprising,  still  fairly 
well  satisfied  with  itself,  with  no  lack  of 
energy  and  bustle.  As  it  happened,  there 
was  a  stir  in  local  politics  at  the  time  of  my 
visit  (possibly  there  always  is),  and  at  the 
street  corners  all  patriotic  citizens  were  ex- 
horted to  do  their  duty.     "  Vote  for  Tom 

for  sheriff,"  said  one  placard.     "  Vote 

for   Bob  ,"    said   another,   in   capitals 

equally  importunate.  In  Tennessee,  as 
everywhere  else,  the  politician  knows  his 
trade.  Familiarity,  readiness  with  the  hand, 
freedom  with  one's  own  name  (Tom,  not 
Thomas,  if  you  please),  and  a  happy  knack 
at  remembering  the  names  of  other  people, 
—  these  are  some  of  the  preelection  tests  of 
statesmanship. 

All  in  all,  then,  between  politics  and 
business,  the  city  was  "  very  much  alive,"  as 
the  saying  goes ;  but  somehow  it  was  not  so 
often  the  people  about  me  that  occupied  my 


212      SOME  TENNESSEE  BIRD  NOTES. 

thoughts  as  those  who  had  been  here  thirty 
years  before.  Precious  is  the  power  of  a 
first  impression.  Because  I  was  newly  in 
the  country  I  was  constantly  under  the  feel- 
ing of  its  past.  Hither  and  thither  I  went 
in  the  region  round  about,  listening  at  every 
turn,  spying  into  every  bush  at  the  stirring 
of  a  leaf  or  the  chirp  of  a  bird ;  yet  I  had 
always  with  me  the  men  of  '63,  and  felt 
always  that  I  was  on  holy  ground. 


A  LIST  OF  BIRDS 

Found  in  the  Neighbokhood  of  Chattanooga 
FBOM  Aprh,  27  to  Mat  18,  1894. 

1.  Green  Heron.  Ardea  virescens.  —  A  single  individual 
seen  from  a  car  window.  No  other  water  birds  were 
observed  except  three  or  four  ducks  and  a  single  wader, 
all  upon  the  wing  and  unidentified. 

2.  Bob  White.    Quail.   Partridge.    Colinus  virginianus. 

—  Common. 

3.  Ruffed  Grouse.  "Pheasant."  Bonasa  umhellus. — 
Heard  drumming  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

4.  Carolina  Dove.  Mourning  Dove.  Zenaidura  ma- 
croura.  —  A  small  number  seen. 

5.  Turkey  Vulture.    Turkey  Buzzard.    Cathartes  aura. 

—  Common. 

6.  Black  Vulture.     Carrion  Crow.     Catharista  atrata. 

—  Two  birds  seen. 

7.  Red-tailed  Hawk.  Buteo  horealis  —  One  bird  seen 
from  Walden's  Ridge. 

8.  Sparrow  Hawk.  Falco  sparverius.  —  One  bird,  on 
Walden's  Ridge. 

9.  Yellow  -  billed  Cuckoo.  Coccyzus  americanus.  — 
Common.     First  noticed  April  29. 

10.  Black-billed  Cuckoo.     Coccyzus    erythrophthalmus. 

—  Seen  twice  on  Lookout  Mountain,  May  7  and  8,  and 
once  on  Walden's  Ridge,  May  12. 

11.  Belted  Kingfisher.  Ceryle  alcyon.  — A  single  bird 
heard  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

12.  Hairy  Woodpecker.  Dryobates  villosus.  —  My  notes 
record  seven  birds.    No  attempt  was  made  to  detenuine 


214  A  LIST  OF  BIRDS. 

their  specific  or  sub-specific  identity,  but  they  are  pre- 
sumed to  have  been  D.  villosus,  not  D.  villosus  audubonii, 

13.  Downy  Woodpecker.  Bryohates  pubescens.  —  A 
single  bird  was  heard  (not  seen)  on  Walden's  Ridge,  — a 
noticeable  reversal  of  the  usual  relative  commonness  of 
this  species  and  the  preceding. 

14.  Red-eockaded  Woodpecker.  Dryobates  horealis.  — 
Found  only  at  Chickamauga,  on  Snodgrass  Hill,  in  long- 
leaved  pines  —  two  or  three  birds. 

15.  Pileated  Woodpecker.  "  Logeock."  Ceophlceus 
pileatus.  —  Said  to  be  common  on  Walden's  Ridge,  where 
I  heard  its  flicker-like  shout. 

16.  Red-headed  Woodpecker.  Melanerpes  erythrocepha- 
lus.  —  One  seen  near  Missionary  Ridge  and  one  at  Chick- 
amauga. The  scarcity  of  this  bird,  and  the  absence  of 
the  red-bellied  and  the  yellow-bellied,  were  among  the 
surprises  of  my  visit. 

17.  Flicker.  Golden- winged  Woodpecker.  Colaptes 
auratus.  —  Not  common.  Three  birds  were  seen  at  Chick- 
amauga, and  it  was  occasional  on  Walden's  Ridge,  where 
I  listed  it  five  days  of  the  seven. 

18.  Whippoorwill.  Antrostomus  vociferus.  —  Un- 
doubtedly common.  I  heard  it  only  on  Walden's  Ridge, 
the  only  place  where  I  went  into  the  woods  after  dark. 

19.  Nighthawk.     Chordeiles  virginianus.  —  Common. 

20.  Chinmey   Swift.     Chcetura  pelagica.  —  Abundant. 

21.  Ruby-throated  Humming-bird.  Trochilus  coluhris. 
—  Common  in  the  forests  of  Walden's  Ridge.  Seen  but 
twice  elsewhere.     First  seen  April  28. 

22.  Kingbird.  Tyrminus  tyrannus.  —  Seen  but  three 
times  —  nine  specimens  in  all.     First  seen  April  29. 

23.  Crested  Flycatcher.  Myiarchus  crinitus.  —  Noticed 
daily,  with  two  exceptions. 

24.  Phoebe.  Sayornis  phcebe.  —  Common  on  Lookout 
Mountain  and  Walden's  Ridge.    Not  seen  elsewhere. 


A  LIST  OF  BIRDS.  215 

25.  Wood  Pewee.  Contopus  virens.  —  Very  common. 
Much  the  most  numerous  member  of  the  family.  Pres- 
ent in  good  force  April  27,  and  gathering  nest  materials 
AprU  29. 

26.  Acadian  Flycatcher.  Green-crested  Flycatcher. 
Empidonax  virescens.  —  Common. 

27.  Blue  Jay.  Cyanocitta  cristata. — Scarce  (for  the 
blue  jay),  and  not  seen  on  Walden's  Ridge ! 

28.  Crow.  Corvus  americanus.  —  Apparently  much  less 
common  than  in  Eastern  Massachusetts. 

29.  Bobolink.  Dolichonyx  oryzivorus.  —  A  small  flock 
seen,  and  heard  singing,  April  27. 

30.  Orchard  Oriole.  Icterus  spurins.  —  Common,  but 
not  found  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

31.  Baltimore  Oriole.  Icterus  galhula.  —  A  single  bird, 
at  Chickamauga,  May  3. 

32.  Crow  Blackbird.  Quiscalus  quiscula  ?  —  Seen  on 
sundry  occasions  in  the  valley  country,  but  specific  dis- 
tinction not  made  out.  Both  forms  —  Q.  quiscula  and  Q. 
quiscula  ceneus  —  are  found  in  Tennessee.  See  Dr.  Fox's 
List  of  Birds  found  in  Roane  County,  Tennessee.  "  The 
Auk,"  vol.  iii.  p.  315.  My  own  list  of  the  Icteridse  is 
remarkable  for  its  omissions,  especially  of  the  cowbird, 
the  red-winged  blackbird  (which,  however,  I  am  pretty 
certain  that  I  saw  on  the  wing)  and  the  meadow  lark. 

33.  House  Sparrow.  English  Sparrow.  Passer  domes- 
ticus.  —  Distressingly  superabundant  in  the  city  and  its 
suburbs. 

34.  Goldfinch.  Spinus  tristis.  —  Abundant.  Still  in 
flocks. 

35.  White-crowned  Sparrow.  Zonotrichia  leucophrys.  — 
Seen  but  once  (May  1),  two  birds,  in  the  national  ceme- 
tery. 

36.  White-throated  Sparrow.  Zonotrichia  albicoUis. 
—  Common.  Still  present  on  Walden's  Ridge  (in  two 
places)  May  13.    Sang  very  little. 


216  A  LIST  OF  BIRDS. 

37.  Chipping  Sparrow.  Doorstep  Sparrow.  Spizella 
socialis.  —  Common. 

38.  Field  Sparrow.     Spizella  pusilla.  —  Common. 

39.  Baehman's  Sparrow.  Peuccea  aestivalis  hachmanii. 
—  Common.     One  of  the  best  of  singers. 

40.  Chewink.  Towhee.  Pipilo  erythrophthalmus.  — 
Rather  common.  Much  less  numerous  than  I  should 
have  expected  from  the  nature  of  the  country. 

41.  Cardinal  Grosbeak.  Cardinalis  cardinalis.  —  Seen 
daily,  but  seemingly  not  very  numerous. 

42.  Rose-breasted  Grosbeak.  Habia  ludoviciana.  —  A 
single  female,  May  11. 

43.  Indigo-bird.  Passerina  cyanea.  —  Very  abundant. 
For  the  first  time  I  saw  this  tropical-looking  beauty  in 
flocks. 

44.  Scarlet  Tanager.  Piranga  erythromelas.  —  Common 
on  the  mountains,  but  seemingly  rare  in  the  valley. 

45.  Summer  Tanager.  Piranga  rubra.  —  Common 
throughout. 

46.  Purple  Martin.     Progne  subis.  —  Common. 

47.  Rough-winged  Swallow.  Stelgidop)teryx  serripen- 
nis.  —  A  few  birds  seen. 

48.  Red-eyed  Vireo.  Vireo  olivaceus.  —  Common. 
One  of  the  species  listed  every  day. 

49.  Yellow-throated  Vireo.  Vireo  flavifrons.  —  Com- 
mon.   Seen  or  heard  every  day  except  April  27. 

50.  White-eyed  Vireo.  Vireo  noveboracensis.  —  Abun- 
dant.    Heard  every  day. 

51.  Black  -  and  -  white  Creeper.  Mniotilta  varia.  — 
Very  common. 

52.  Blue-winged  Warbler.  Helminthophila  pinus.  — 
One  bird  seen  at  Chickamauga,  and  a  pair  on  Missionary 
Ridge. 

53.  Golden-winged  Warbler.  Helminthophila  chryso- 
ptera.  —  Common,  especially  in  the  broken  woods  north  of 
the  city. 


A  LIST  OF  BIRDS.  217 

54.  Parula  Warbler.  Blue  Yellow-backed  Warbler. 
Compsothlypis  americana.  —  Only  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

55.  Cape  May  Warbler.  Dendroica  tigrina.  —  One  bird 
seen  on  Cameron  Hill,  and  a  small  company  on  Lookout 
Mountain  —  April  27,  and  May  7  and  8. 

56.  Yellow  Warbler.  Golden  Warbler.  Dendroica 
(Estiva.  —  Comjnon,  but  not  observed  on  Walden's  Ridg-e. 

57.  Black-throated  Blue  Warbler.  Dendroica  cceru- 
lescens.  —  Common,  April  27  to  May  14. 

58.  Myrtle  Warbler.  Yellow-rumped  Warbler.  Den- 
droica coronata.  —  Noted  April  27  and  28,  and  May  7 
and  8. 

59.  Magnolia  Warbler.  Dendroica  maculosa.  —  Not 
uncommon,  May  1  to  12. 

60.  Cerulean  Warbler.  Dendroica  ccerulea.  —  One  bird, 
a  male  in  song,  on  Lookout  Mountain. 

61.  Cbestnut-sided  Warbler.     Dendroica  pensyJvanica, 

—  Listed  on  six  dates  —  April  27  to  May  12. 

62.  Bay -breasted  Warbler.  Dendroica  castanea. — 
Seven  or  eight  individuals  —  April  27  to  May  10. 

63.  Black-poll  Warbler.  Dendroica  striata.  —  Common 
to  May  13. 

64.  Blackbumian  Warbler.  Dendroica  blacJcburnice. — 
Seven  birds  —  May  1  to  18. 

65.  Yellow  -  throated  Warbler.  Dendroica  dominica. 
(Albilora  ?)  —  Found  only  at  Chickamauga  (Snodgrass 
Hill),  where  it  seemed  to  be  common. 

66.  Black-throated  green  Warbler.     Dendroica  virens. 

—  Common. 

67.  Pine  Warbler.  Dendroica  vigorsii.  —  Not  numer- 
ous, but  found  in  appropriate  places. 

68.  Palm  Warbler.  Dendroica  palmarum.  —  The  spe- 
cific —  or  sub-specific  —  identity  of  this  bird  was  not  cer- 
tainly determined,  but  I  judged  the  specimens  —  seen 
on  four  dates,  April  29  to  May  11  —  to  be  as  above  given, 
rather  than  D.  palmarum  hypochrysea. 


218  A  LIST  OF  BIRDS. 

69.  Prairie  Warbler.  Dendroica  discolor.  —  Very  com- 
mon. 

70.  Oven-bird.  Seiurus  aurocapillus.  —  Common  on 
Lookout  Moimtain  and  Walden's  Ridge.  Seen  but  once 
in  the  lower  country. 

71.  Louisiana  Water-thrush.  Seiurus  motacilla.  —  A 
few  birds  seen  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

72.  Kentucky  Warbler.  Geothlypis  formosa.  —  Very 
common,  and  in  places  very  unlike. 

73.  Maryland  Yellow  -  throat.  Geothlypis  trichas.  — 
Common. 

74.  Yellow-breasted  Chat.  Icteria  virens.  —  Very  com- 
mon. 

75.  Hooded  Warbler.  Sylvania  mitrata.  —  Common, 
especially  along  the  woodland  streams  on  Walden's  Ridge. 

76.  Wilson's  Blackcap.  Sylvania  pusilla.  —  A  single 
bird  on  Walden's  Ridge,  May  12,  in  free  song. 

77.  Canadian  Warbler.  Sylvania  canadensis.  —  Seen 
on  three  dates  —  May  6,  11,  and  12. 

78.  Redstart.  Setophaga  ruticilla.  —  Common.  Not 
seen  after  May  14. 

79.  Mocking-bird.  Mimus  polyglottos.  —  Rare.  Not 
found  on  the  mountains. 

80.  Catbird.  Galeoscoptes  caroUnensis.  —  Very  com- 
mon, both  in  the  city  and  in  the  country  round  about. 

81.  Brown  Thrasher.  Harporhynchus  rufus.  —  Com- 
mon. 

82.  Carolina  Wren.  Mocking  Wren.  Thryothorus  ludo- 
vicianus.  —  Common. 

83.  Bewick's  Wren.  Thryothorus  hewichii.  —  Not  com- 
mon.    Seen  only  on  Missionary  Ridge. 

84.  White-breasted  Nuthatch.  Sitta  caroUnensis.  — 
Common  at  Chickamauga  and  on  Walden's  Ridge.  A 
single  bird  noticed  on  Lookout  Mountain. 

85.  Tufted  Titmouse.     Parus  bicolor.  —  Common. 


A  LIST  OF  BIBDS.  219 

86.  Carolina  Chickadee.  Parus  carolinensis.  —  Com- 
mon. 

87.  Blue  -  gray  Gnatcatcher.  PoUoptila  ccerulea.  — 
Common. 

88.  Wood  Thrush.  Tardus  mustelinus.  —  Very  com- 
mon. A  bird  with  its  beak  full  of  nest  materials  was 
seen  April  29,  at  the  base  of  Missionary  Ridge. 

89.  Wilson's  Thrush.  Veery.  Turdus  fuscescens.  — 
Rare. 

90.  Gray-cheeked  Thrush.  Turdus  alicice,  or  T.  ali- 
cice  hicknelli.  —  Two  birds,  May  2  and  13. 

91.  Swainson's  Thrush.  Olive-backed  Thrush.  Tur- 
dus ustulatus  swai7isonii.  —  In  good  numbers  and  free 
song.     Seen  on  four  dates,  the  latest  being  May  12. 

92.  Robin.  Merula  migratoria.  —  Five  birds  in  the 
national  cemetery,  April  29. 

93.  Bluebird.  Sialia  sialis.  —  Common,  Young  birds 
out  of  the  nest,  April  28. 


INDEX. 


Arbutus,  137. 
Azalea :  — 

flame-colored,  178. 

pink,  182. 

white,  132. 

Baptisia,  blue,  14,  93. 
Blackbird :  — 

crow,  99. 

red-winged,  215. 
Bluebird,  9,  13,  78,  99,  111, 

207. 
BoboUnk,  205,  209. 
Buzzard,  turkey,  6,  188. 

Catbird,  6, 17,  25,  43,  47,  78, 

99,  111,  183,  207. 
Catcbfly,  scarlet,  15, 85, 109. 
Cedar-bird,  207. 
Chat,  yellow-breasted,  3,  6, 

9,13,17,19,27,47,55,99, 

110,  121,  135,  204. 
Chewink,  6, 13,  207. 
Chickadee,  blackcap,  98. 
Chickadee,  Carolina,  13,  25, 

71,  88. 
Cowslip,  85. 
Cranesbill,  34,  85. 
Creeper,  black-and-white,  6, 

12,  33,  42,  117,  204,  207. 
Cross-vine,  23,  137,  181. 
Crow,  42,  189. 
Cuckoo :  — 

black-billed,  31,  42. 
yeUow-biUed,  19,  24,  71, 
99,  111,  117. 

Dogwood,  flowering,  136. 
Dove,  mourning,  24. 


Fern :  — 

cinnamon,  148. 
maiden-hair,  47. 
Finch  :  — 

Bachman's,  2,  6,  9,  13, 
25,  6G,  78,  81, 110,  118, 
193,  194,  210. 
purple,  194. 
Flicker,  66,  78,  190. 
Flycatcher :  — 

Acadian,  17,  24,  26,  62, 

117. 
crested,    9,    13,  67,   71, 
87. 
^  yeUow-bellied,  206. 
Fringe-tree,  135. 

Ginger,  wild,  137. 
Gnatcatcher,    blue-gray,   6, 

13,  18,  55,  99,  110. 
Goldfinch,  13,  17,  24,  25,  47, 

78,  111. 
GromweU,  85,  92. 
Grosbeak :  — 

cardinal,  6,  13,  23,   26, 

42,  135,  146,  162. 
rose-breasted,  119,  194. 
Grouse,    ruffed    (pheasant), 
167. 

Hawk :  — 

red-tailed,  169,  187. 

sparrow,  174,  187. 
Hieracium,  122. 
Houstonia,  23,  61,  85,  93. 
Humming-bird,    ruby- 
throated,  109,  178,  191. 

Indigo-bird,  6,  9,  13, 17,  47, 


222 


INDEX. 


55,  72,  78,  110,  111,  121, 
204. 

Jay,  blue,  178, 189. 

Kingbird,  13,  87. 
Kinglet,     golden  -  crowned, 
97. 

Lady's-slipper,  yellow,  178. 

Lizard,  43,  55. 

Locust,  seventeen-year,  55, 

70,  83,  114,  149. 

Magnolia,  136,  148. 
Martin,  purple,  6,  185. 
Maryland  yellow-throat,   6, 

13,  47,  61,  70,  185. 
MUkweed,  92,  142. 
Mistletoe,  110. 
Mocking-bird,  6,  78,  82,  94, 

183. 
Mountain  Laurel,   132,  135, 

147,  169,  173,  176. 

Nuthatch,    white  -  breasted 
(CaroUna),  58,  61,  82. 

Oriole  :  — 

Baltimore,  78. 
orchard,  13,  78,  99,  111, 
185. 
Oven-bird,  31,  33,  42,   122, 

196. 
Oxalis  :  — 

violet,  34, 61, 85. 
yeUow,  85. 

Pentstemon,  61,  122. 
Pewee,  wood,  6,  17,  33,  62, 

71,  78,  99,  117,  135. 
Phlox,  23,  34,  61,  85,  122. 
PhcEbe,  28,  41,  207- 
Pink,  Indian,  15. 

QuaU,  6,  71,  122. 

Ragwort    (Senecio),  93,  122. 


Raven,  130. 

Redstart,  6,  13,  25,  108,  117. 

Rhododendron,  135-137, 147, 

169,  173,  176,  181. 
Robin,  96,  207,  210. 
Rue  anemone,  62,  85. 

Saxifrage,  34. 
Sparrow  :  — 

Bachman's  (see  Finch). 
chipping,   6,  13,  26,  99, 

111,  193,  207. 
field,  6,  13, 17,  25, 47, 55, 
62,  67,  70,  87, 117, 135, 
193. 
house  (English)  93,  183, 

185. 
song,  4,  194,  205,  210. 
vesper,  194,  207,  210. 
white-crowned,  96. 
white-throated,  6, 26, 95, 
135,  142,  208. 
Specularia,  122. 
Spring  beauty,  61,  85. 
Stonecrop,  white,  34. 
Swallow :  — 

rough-winged,  22,  87, 88, 

187. 
tree  (white-bellied),  187, 
205,  207. 
Sweet  bush,  137. 
Swift,  chimney,  189. 

Tanager :  — 

scarlet,  20,  24,    33,  41, 

118, 131,  135, 162. 
summer,  3,  6,  13,  17,  20, 
47,  70,  78, 120,  131. 
Thrasher  (brown  thrush),  6, 
7,  13,   17,  33,  82,  99,  111, 
183,  207. 
Thrush :  — 

gray-cheeked,  141. 
hermit,  207. 
Louisiana  water,  163. 
olive  -  backed      (Swain- 
son's),  7, 13,  14, 19,  20, 
22,  24,  133,  208. 


INDEX. 


223 


Wilson's  (veery),  13,  14, 

25,  111. 
wood,  6,  13,  14,  17,  33, 
47,   87,   99,   117,    120, 
135. 
Titmouse,  tufted,  13, 14,  61, 

70. 
Tulip-tree,  178, 193. 
Tupelo,  23. 
Turkey,  wild,  81, 130,  140. 

Viburnum,  maple-leaved,  34. 
Violet,  bird-foot,  34,  85. 
Vireo :  — 

red-eyed,  6,  13,  33,  42, 

47,  55,  70. 
solitary,  207. 
white-eyed,  6,  9,  13, 17, 
47,  110, 121,  204,  207. 
yellow-throated,    9,   13, 
33,  70,  99,  117. 
Vulture :  — 

black     (carrion    crow), 

111,  188. 
turkey,  6, 188. 

Warbler :  — 

bay-breasted,  6,  28,  32, 

38,  49,  208. 
Blackburnian,  30, 31,  38, 

204. 
black-poU,  6, 12,  19,  28, 

32,  38,  42,  49,  61,  81, 

96,  117,  198,  204,  208. 
black-throated  blue,  12, 

31,  32,  37,  135,  157- 
black  -  throated    green, 

28,  31,  135,  156,  202. 
blue-wmged,  20,  22,  71, 

79,  80. 
blue  yellow-backed,  21, 

134,  135. 
Canadian,  21,  22, 23, 117, 

135,  204. 

Cape  May,   32,   37,   39, 

198,  200,  204,  208. 
cerulean,  53. 


chestnut-sided,    12,   25, 

117,  204. 
Connecticut,  14. 
golden-winged,  13,   110, 

120,  195. 

hooded,  7,  48,  135,  146, 

156,  203. 
Kentucky,  9,  13,  14,  19, 

24,  35,  47,  49,  109, 110, 

116,  122,  132,  135, 156, 
202-204. 

magnolia,  19,  30,  32,  37, 

117,  204. 
mourning,  206. 
myrtle  (yellow-rumped), 

6,  12,  32,  39,  198,  204, 

207,  208. 
Nashville,  195. 
palm    (redpoll),  32,  38, 

117,  204,  207. 
pine,  25,  175,  207. 
prairie,  6,   21,   25,   110, 

121,  203,  207. 
Tennessee,  195. 
Wilson's  blackcap,  136, 

204 
yellow  (golden),  12,  99, 

108,  185,  203, 
yellow-throated,  72,  73, 
75,  80. 
Water  -  thrush,     Louisiana, 

163. 
Whippoorwill,  143. 
Wintergreen,  striped,  34. 
Woodpecker :  — 
downy,  191. 
golden-winged,  66,  190. 
hairy,  30,  190. 
pUeated,  191. 
red-cockaded,  67, 73,  80, 

191. 
red-headed,  80,  190, 191. 
Wren :  — 

Bewick's,  4. 
Carolina    (mocking),   6, 
13,   17,   25,  26,  28,  42, 
47,  55,  71,  109,  162. 


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